


Stakes

by imunbreakabledude



Series: Thirst-verse [3]
Category: Killing Eve (TV 2018)
Genre: Action & Romance, Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Vampire, F/F, Vampires, blood stuff (bc of the vampires), dark!eve, heavy on the villaneve, humor and goofs, sexy violence, vampire!villanelle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-15
Updated: 2020-05-02
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:40:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 26,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23157961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imunbreakabledude/pseuds/imunbreakabledude
Summary: Eve and Villanelle are on the run. An unlikely pair – vampire and human – they find themselves in the middle of a bigger supernatural conflict than they could’ve imagined. As they face fiercer foes and harder choices, can their budding relationship withstand the rising stakes?
Relationships: Eve Polastri/Villanelle | Oksana Astankova
Series: Thirst-verse [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1620313
Comments: 170
Kudos: 483





	1. Homecoming

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Part II of your tropey-goofy-sexy-dark-romantic-supernatural Villaneve vampire AU is here.
> 
> Want to start at the beginning? Read [Thirst](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22167241) first. Or read this [brief recap](https://imunbreakabledude.tumblr.com/post/612672612449042432/thirst-recap) if you want a refresher.

“A little to the left,” Eve says. “No, _my_ left.”

“Like this?” Villanelle asks, waiting for approval.

“Yes, but slower – not so much pressure.”

“You’re not being clear with me,” Villanelle says, failing to hide the frustration in her voice.

“I feel idiotic.”

Villanelle frowns and caps her lipstick. “Konstantin never complained this much when he was my mirror.”

“That’s because you had him under mind control.”

“Would you prefer if I do that to you?” Villanelle asks. Honest curiosity in her eyes.

“I can’t deal with you right now.”

“Don’t act like I’m asking for something unreasonable, Eve. I have to look presentable if we are getting on a plane tonight. Hey,” she cries, as Eve unlocks the car door. “Don’t leave!”

“I’m going to the store,” Eve says, climbing out of the car and slamming the door shut.

  
Leaving Villanelle to stew in the parking garage, Eve enjoys a much-needed break to get some sunlight and collect her own thoughts, which run wild, as they have been for some time now.

Eve isn’t fully convinced that she’s not dead.

Her current reality exists in a logic entirely of its own, detached from everything Eve’s life had been before.

Running around the British isles. With a vampire. Fleeing from hunters. That Eve once was a part of, trying to kill said vampire. But she betrayed them to save the vampire, after said vampire inexplicably made a kamikaze move to save her. Now she and said vampire spend most nights sleeping in a car or abandoned building. And sleeping… together.

That part seems the most unrealistic to Eve.

She makes her way through the streets of Dublin to a grocery store. Although the main purpose of this trip was to get a break from Villanelle, she also needs to stock up on food. Two birds, one stone.

Tracing the aisles inattentively, she shoves anything that looks appealing to her into her basket. Crisps? Why not. Soda? You only live once.

She progresses drowsily through her shopping. It isn’t until her eyes drift to the magazine rack by the checkout that she’s jolted out of her reverie.

It’s been a month. One full month that she’s been on the run with Villanelle. For some reason, seeing the date plastered on a tabloid cover, alongside some celebrity gossip that Eve is woefully behind on, throws into stark relief how much Eve left behind.

One month. Since she’d slept in her own bed, since she’d known any human company besides strangers she passes in the store, since she’d seen Niko.

Niko.

It’s not the first time he’s crossed Eve’s mind in the past month, of course, but every other time, the danger felt more imminent, she could tell herself there was no time to think about anything she’d left behind, she had no choice but to run.

Now, as she waits in the checkout line at Aldi where the greatest danger is the sickening cloud of perfume from the old lady in front of her, she has no excuse to protect herself from the reality that she’d vanished with no word to her husband.

What must he think? Did he call the police, report her missing? How long before they’d given up the search? Or perhaps, Carolyn had taken the initiative to reach out to him, tell him that Eve died in some secret MI6 mission, details classified. Spare him the pain. Maybe he’s already buried Eve, already mourned her loss.

Or maybe he is still waiting for Eve to come home. She isn’t sure which possibility makes her feel guiltier.

After paying, she asks to use the bathroom and follows the cashier to the small one-stall affair in the back. Removing the packet of fresh gauze she just purchased, she places it atop the sink, and looks in the mirror as she peels up the edge of the tape currently securing the bandage over her neck.

She always waits to change it while she’s alone. She doesn’t like to do it in front of Villanelle. She can’t say exactly why.

As she pulls the gauze off, she rubs away the sticky residue from the tape, then, holding her breath, examines the sight underneath.

Twin red crescents, in the shape of Villanelle’s teeth. The skin around them is slightly pink and taut, but the wound is closed, well on its way to knotting into light white scar tissue.

Hesitantly, as if it might burn her at her touch, Eve raises her fingers to touch the scar. It’s still a little bit rough, the last few bumps of scabs nearly sealed up, but it’s essentially healed. It definitely doesn’t need a bandage covering it anymore, and honestly, hasn’t for some time now. But each time Eve checked on it, she always got the urge to cover it up again. The sight was too jarring. Much nicer to see a bandage in the mirror. A bandage could be covering any number of normal injuries.

This scar could only be from one thing.

Eve reaches for the gauze, but then stops. In spite of her fear, she knows she can’t very well wear a bandage for the rest of her life. It will have to come off at some point…

She shoves the gauze back in her grocery bag and shakes out her hair, rearranging her curls so that they hide the scar. There, that’s not so bad. It’s hardly visible. She could almost be a regular human who’s never met a vampire. Who has no idea vampires even exist.

When she returns to the parking garage, she expects to find Villanelle snoozing, but the vampire is awake and surprisingly peppy. “What’d you get?” she asks, as Eve climbs into the passenger seat.

Eve displays her bag, full of processed foods, pre-made meals and snack food. Villanelle wrinkles her nose. “You should really pick healthier choices. It would be a shame if I saved your life just for you to die an early death from this crap.”

“Shut up,” Eve replies. “I can’t cook anything real when we’re living out of a car, anyway.”

“Good point,” Villanelle says. “I think we should head for the airport as soon as the sun sets. It’s time to move on from Ireland. And since you’ve been so crabby lately, you can choose where we go next.”

A choice. Eve ought to make the most of this, since Villanelle has ignored all of her questions and suggestions about their travels thus far, dragging her from place to place in spite of her protests.

After a few minutes of thought, Eve asks, “How about London?”

“London,” Villanelle repeats, dryly. “The place we fled from. The place where the people who are hunting us are headquartered.”

“Yes.”

Villanelle stares at Eve with disbelief. “I don’t think you understand this whole ‘running for our lives’ thing.”

“It’s been a month. They must’ve given up by now.”

“Did you forget they have been after me for nearly a year?”

“Okay, but… they know that we fled, and they’ve definitely expanded their search by now. The last thing they’d expect is for us to go back under their noses.”

“That is cartoon logic.” Villanelle frowns, suspicion darkening her face. “Why do you have a death wish? Is my company that terrible?”

“Since when are you so cautious?” Eve taunts. “Where’s the vampire who dared me to leave her outside while the sun rose, huh? Where’s the gal who faced down four hunters without flinching? Who literally burst into flames in the greatest escape of all time?”

Eve spots the hint of a smile playing at Villanelle’s lips, but she suppresses it, tries to look very responsible as she replies, “I’ve become more concerned with safety since I started carting around a squishy-squashy human.”

Eve wants to rebut that, but she’s caught off guard, as she always is, when Villanelle expresses such open care for her. And by Villanelle pinching Eve in the side to reinforce her point about the squishiness.

“Why are you so interested in going back to London, anyway?” Villanelle demands.

“There’s some stuff I left at home that I need to get.”

“Stuff.”

“Things.”

Villanelle cocks an eyebrow and says nothing.

“It’s been a month,” Eve says.

“Yes.”

“I know when you’re staring down eternity, a month doesn’t seem long. But for me, well, a month isn’t long in the grand scheme of my life, either, but it is when it comes after an abrupt and complete upheaval of my life.”

“You want to go home,” Villanelle says. A statement, not a question, and there’s a certain wistfulness to her tone, like she knew this discussion would come eventually.

“Not forever,” Eve struggles to find the right words. “There are certain things that I need to make right.”

Not that Eve knows how to make them right, but she knows the pit in her stomach won’t go away unless she faces Niko one last time. When she looks at him, maybe the words will come; maybe she’ll figure out how to say that she’s sorry for disappearing on him, and for lying to him for weeks before that, and that she’s committed adultery a few times over, and also, as a footnote, vampires are real.

Whether he’ll accept any of it, Eve doesn’t know, but strangely enough, she doesn’t feel any dread about it one way or the other… because she isn’t looking to be welcomed back with open arms, is she?

Even if Niko invites her to, she can’t simply go back to her old life the way it was before.

Not after the Silver League. Not after Villanelle.

So all she really needs is to get it all off her chest. Maybe it’s selfish. Maybe it’ll do more harm than good, and Niko is better off thinking she’s dead and mourning her in his own way. But if Eve doesn’t do this now, it will gnaw at her for the rest of her life.

Villanelle leans over to Eve, and for a moment, Eve thinks she’s going for a kiss, but she leans low, opens the glove compartment. Some brief rummaging, then she slams it shut again. “We need cash for the tickets.”

“How?” Eve says. It hadn’t fully occurred to her that they could run out of money, because every time she needed food, or gas, Villanelle produced a handful of bills as if from nowhere, and Eve didn’t dare question where they came from. 

“There are a few ways,” Villanelle says, facing forward and starting the car. “I will show you my favorite.”

Checking that the sun is safely behind the horizon, Villanelle starts up the car and pulls them out of the garage.

“You took off your bandage,” she says after a few minutes, keeping her eyes on the road.

“Yes,” Eve says.

She waits for Villanelle’s opinion on that, but it never comes. She remains silent for the rest of the drive to the Dublin airport. 

Once they arrive, they pack their things into a small carry-on each, and leave the car keys in the ignition. “Help out another sonofabitch on the run,” Villanelle chuckles.

As they walk through the parking lot, Eve stops short and says, “Wait. We never stopped for money.”

“Relax, Eve.” Villanelle says. “We are exactly where we need to be. Hold my bag.”

She drops her bag at Eve’s feet and walks away, down the line of cars. Is she about to break in to one? See if there’s cash inside? That hardly seems elegant. Plain old mugging would probably be more successful.

Eventually, Villanelle comes to a stop next to an Audi with its lights on. She stands completely still. What is she doing?

Then, Eve lets out a yelp of shock and horror as the Audi goes into reverse and backs up right into Villanelle. A thud, Villanelle cries out, and the car stops.

“Oh my God!” she screams, running over to where Villanelle is splayed on the ground. “Oh my God. Are you alright?”

“Augh… My neck…” Villanelle whimpers, but flashes a wink at Eve.

The owner of the Audi has gotten out now. A man in a suit, who looks to be in his fifties, with thinning salt-and-pepper hair. 

“How…” The man stammers. “I didn’t–I couldn’t see–I checked my mirrors, I swear I did. I didn’t see…”

“Oh, it hurts,” Villanelle wails. “I think something may be broken.”

The businessman looks absolutely terrified. “Look, I really have to run, but–”

“You’re not going anywhere,” Eve says, fiercely. She understands the game now, and she’s more than happy to play along. “I saw you drive right into her. You should be going to jail. Or at least paying a huge settlement.” 

Villanelle piles on with more pained moaning, and Eve gives the man a pointed look. “What are you waiting for? Start writing down your insurance information.”

“I really don’t think we need to get insurance involved,” the man stammers, going beet-red. “Let me see…”

He pulls out a fancy leather wallet and rifles through it. “Here,” he says, shoving a handful of bills at Eve. “That should cover any medical–”

“What about my pain and suffering?” Villanelle whines.

The man grimaces and hands Eve a few more bills. “That’s all I have,” he says, pleadingly. Eve counts the stack in her hands – almost a thousand Euro. “Is that enough to keep this between us?”

Eve flashes a look at Villanelle, then says, “Have a great night.”

The man gets back in his car without response. Eve makes a big show of helping Villanelle to her feet, as they wait for the man to drive away.

“What a piece of shit,” Eve mutters.

“Rich piece of shit,” Villanelle says brightly, dusting herself off and taking the cash from Eve. “That went better than expected.” She stretches her neck from side to side, cracking it. “It’s been a while, so I forgot. Getting hit by a car kind of hurts.”

  
A few hours later, they’ve landed at Heathrow and are catching a cab home. It feels strangely familiar, like any time Eve has come home from a vacation or work trip in the past. She feels a rush of excitement at the idea of taking a shower and sleeping in her own bed. Then, she has to remind herself, that probably isn’t going to happen. (The bed part. She’s fairly determined to finagle her way into a shower, at least, even if it turns out that Niko hates her now.)

As they reach the door to Eve’s house, she digs around in her pockets, then realizes, unsurprisingly, somewhere in the battle against vampire hunters, mad escape through underground tunnels or the month of traipsing across Britain and Ireland, she’s lost her house keys.

“Shit,” she mutters. She rings the doorbell. No response. Rings it again and knocks. Nothing. Niko must be dead asleep.

Hanging out on the stoop is not her desired activity right now. She sighs and turns to Villanelle. “Okay, I’m going to go around to the side window. I can pry it open and climb in, then unlock it for you.”

“Eve,” Villanelle says, in a dry, disapproving tone.

“I’ve done it before,” Eve says. “It’ll take two minutes.”

“I applaud your ingenuity,” Villanelle says. “But…” She reaches out a hand to clutch the doorknob, then with a small gesture, wrenches it out from the door. Grinning at Eve’s gaping face, she reaches her hand through the hole it left and unlocks the door from the inside.

“Thanks a lot for that,” Eve groans.

“I could’ve done the whole door,” Villanelle says defensively.

“Now anyone can just walk right in,” Eve says, examining the hole as she shuts the door behind her.

“What does it matter? We aren’t staying long,” Villanelle says. “Plus, you have someone to protect you from burglars, remember?”

“Yes, but Niko–” Eve stops as she spots the back of Niko’s head. He’s sitting on the couch. She hadn’t expected him to be downstairs at this hour. There’s no way he couldn’t hear the doorbell, but he’s just sitting there, not saying anything.

Oh well, Eve figures. Time to rip the bandage off. “Niko…” she says softly, approaching him. “I know this may be a shock, but…”

He remains still, not even turning his head. Jeez, is he really still asleep? As Eve rounds the couch to get a look at his face, her throat seizes up.

Niko’s skin is bone-white, his eyes are glassy, and there’s a neat, red bite mark on the side of his neck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so excited to be back, guys. I've been planning this second arc since like, chapter 3 of Thirst.
> 
> let me know what ya think
> 
> or come chat on [tumblr](https://imunbreakabledude.tumblr.com/) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/not_breakable), I don't bite ;)


	2. Hospitality

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eve and Villanelle meet Niko's killer, and it turns out to be an old friend.

“Niko!” Eve gasps, reaching out a hand to check his pulse. She can’t help but hope, even though he’s obviously, totally, completely dead. “No, no, no, no!”

“What do we have here?” Villanelle says, walking into the living room. She spots Niko, forms her mouth into a gentle “O” of mild surprise, but that face is quickly disturbed when Eve dashes over and slaps her across the face.

“You!” Eve shrieks. “You bloodsucking fiend. You monster. I can’t believe you.”

“Hey!” Villanelle squeals, clutching her cheek. “That almost hurt.”

“You killed him.” Eve punches Villanelle in the arm once, twice. “God, I’m an idiot. I actually thought you were decent for a bit.”

“I didn’t do it,” Villanelle says, taking Eve’s blows without faltering.

“Let’s see.” Eve growls. “Bite mark. No blood. Killed by a vampire. In this house. And you are the only vampire I ever invited inside. Do. The. Math.” Eve punctuates each of the final words with another punch.

“Hey now,” Villanelle says in a low, commanding voice, and before Eve even knows what’s happening, her feet are off the ground, and she’s pinned against the living room wall, Villanelle’s arm across her chest. “I know you are emotional, but you need to stop before you make me mad.”

Eve stares into Villanelle’s eyes, and instinctually succumbs to the intimidating yet also calming gaze of a top predator. In a wave, the anger rushes out of her leaving her very tired. She rests her head limply against the wall, where it falls neatly in between framed photos of Niko’s parents.

“Are you ready for me to let go?” Villanelle says.

“Yes,” Eye replies.

“You are not going to hit me again?”

“Probably not,” Eve replies. Villanelle places her gently back on the ground. Eve takes a deep breath, and asks, as calmly as she can, “Why did you do it?”

“I told you, it wasn’t me,” Villanelle says impatiently.

“I’m only gonna get madder if you keep lying about it,” Eve says.

“Eve,” Villanelle says, rubbing her temples. “I have been with you for the past four weeks. When, exactly, do you think I killed Niko?”

“I sleep,” Eve says. “You could’ve left anytime I was sleeping and came back here. Let yourself in. Done it quick.”

“You know how stupid that is,” Villanelle says. “You are grasping at straws because you want this to make sense.”

“I’m not–”

“Shh,” Villanelle puts a finger to Eve’s lips. “Do you want to go on accusing me all night, or do you want me to help you figure out who really killed him?”

Eve relents and nods. “I don’t understand how another vampire could’ve gotten in,” she says as Villanelle stalks over to Niko’s corpse to examine it.

“You are not the only one who can invite someone inside,” Villanelle murmurs as she takes a close look at the bite, then puts the back of her hand against Niko’s neck. “Still warm.”

He hadn’t felt warm to Eve, but maybe that’s where their relative body temperatures came in. Then she processes the full implications of what Villanelle said. “Oh my God, does that mean that the other vampire is still–”

“Shh,” Villanelle says, and cocks her head to the side. Whatever sound she’s tuning into must be too faint for human ears, but then, after a few seconds of bated breath, Eve manages to hear something. The tiniest shuffling sound, coming from upstairs.

Eve’s heart pounds, and adrenaline spikes through her bloodstream. “Shit shit shit shit shit–”

“Shh!” Villanelle quiets her again. “Stay calm and get behind me.”

Eve scrambles behind Villanelle like a terrified child. She instinctively clutches her right hand into a tight fist, wishing she had her stake, but it’s buried in her duffel bag over in the foyer. Probably not the wisest time to dash out and dig it out from a pile of dirty clothes right now, so all she can do is cower behind her vampire bodyguard.

Villanelle ducks into her predatory crouch, which Eve has seen her take only once before, when she was cornered by the Silver League. Knees bent slightly, shoulders hunched, arms out in front of her, teeth bared.

Villanelle shuffles a couple of steps forward, towards the foyer and the stairs, then stops, takes a deep breath in through her nose, and tilts her head in confusion. 

“What is it?” Eve whispers.

Villanelle ignores her, takes another step forward, and a deeper inhale. “Nadia?” she shouts.

Then a voice echoes back. “Oksana?”

A tense moment. Eve pokes her head out, against Villanelle’s advice, and sees a brunette woman, about Villanelle’s age, standing at the top of the staircase. She's dressed in a traveling jacket and heavy pants, and her hair tucked in a messy ponytail. She looks like she’s been camping or otherwise roughing it for several days at least. And, she looks like she has some _feelings_ about Villanelle.

Eve blinks, and when her eyes open again, the brunette vampire – Nadia, she surmises – is down at the bottom of the stairs, on top of Villanelle, pinning her to the floor. Eve takes in a breath to scream, since there’s nothing else she can do, but before she can let loose, she sees both of them shaking with laughter. Villanelle has a hand around the back of Nadia’s head now, an undeniably familiar gesture, and Nadia is beaming.

“Happy to find you alive,” Nadia says. She also has a Russian accent; thicker than Villanelle’s. She rolls off of Villanelle, and helps her to her feet.

“Did you expect anything less?” Villanelle replies, then takes Nadia’s face in both of her hands. “Look at _you._ What happened? Have you been roleplaying as a werewolf or something?” She smirks, and picks a leaf out of Nadia’s tangled hair.

“Excuse me,” Eve says loudly, and both vampires turn to her with mild interest, apparently having forgotten she is there. “Can someone tell me what the fuck’s going on?”

Nadia furrows her brow and says something to Villanelle in Russian, which makes Villanelle let out a hearty laugh. 

“What?” Eve says. “What did she say?”

“She asked if you are my thrall, or my dinner.” Villanelle turns back to Nadia and says, simply, “This is Eve.” 

“You just ate my husband,” Eve says, with a deadly smile. “Would you care to explain yourself?”

Nadia shoots a curious glance at Villanelle, who nods encouragingly. “I needed blood,” Nadia grunts.

“Oh, I understand that,” Eve says, laced with sweetness. “I would like to know why out of the seven billion humans on this planet, you came here, tricked Niko into inviting you in, and killed him. My husband. Specifically. Did you just happen to be in the neighborhood?”

Nadia looks dumbfounded. Villanelle nudges her, and she mumbles, “I have come a long way. I was looking for Oksana. I followed her scent all over this city, and ended up here, and I was thirsty…” She stops, then says something else to Villanelle in Russian. Maybe Eve’s conceited, but she’s pretty sure Nadia is talking about her. If she had to take a whack at translating, she’d guess Nadia is saying something along the lines of: _“Why should I explain myself to this puny blood-sack?”_

Villanelle replies in Russian, and the one word Eve catches is _Nyet_. Then, mid-sentence, she switches back to English. “…fill us in and we can decide what to do.”

“The human, too?” Nadia says.

“Eve can help. She is very smart,” Villanelle says. She heads over to the dining room and takes a seat at the table, beckoning for both Nadia and Eve to join her. Eve is somewhat relieved to see that Nadia appears to be equally uncomfortable with this situation.

As they take their seats, Nadia asks something else in Russian, which makes Villanelle giggle, and say to Eve, “She likes your library.”

“Very…” Nadia pauses, searching for the word. “Complete.”

“I try to be thorough,” Eve replies, in a stilted tone. The thought of Nadia killing Niko, then heading upstairs to poke through Eve’s private sanctuary, her collection of vampire research? Eve does not like that one bit.

“Now,” Villanelle says, as if calling a board meeting to order. “Nadia, explain to us what happened.”

“I was traveling with Diego,” she begins. “We were making our way through Hungary, and we heard some rumors from others we visited. Vampires disappearing suddenly, especially loners. In Austria, we heard of even more.”

“So some people are getting into scraps,” Villanelle says. “Why should that concern us?”

“Not ‘scraps’,” Nadia insists, her eyes dark. “Targeting. Hunting. Chasing until the job is done. They got Diego.”

“When?”

“Two weeks ago. We parted ways to hunt, and he never came back,” Nadia’s jaw is set with worry. “None of us stands a chance alone. That’s why I came looking for you.”

“Is it the Silver League?” Eve blurts out.

Nadia gives Eve another confused look and starts to laugh at the suggestion.

“Don’t mind her,” Villanelle says to Nadia with a smile, like Eve is a toddler who just declared that thunder is the sound of God bowling up in the sky. Eve wishes, once again, that she had her stake.

Nadia takes this instruction rather literally, and begins addressing Villanelle in rapid Russian once more. Villanelle answers, in a more moderate, concerned tone.

“Hey,” Eve cries. “Go back to English.”

Nadia ignores this, and says one more sentence to Villanelle. Short. Annoyed.

Villanelle pauses, blinks, then turns to Eve. “Hey,” she says in a soothing tone, “You must be tired. Why don’t you go upstairs?”

“Are you sending me to my room?” Eve asks, in disbelief.

But Villanelle remains deadly serious. “Take a shower. Get some rest. You’ve been whining nonstop about how you can’t wait to sleep in your own bed…”

“And leave the two of you to plot without me?” Eve replies. “No thanks.” She clasps her hands on the table, making it clear that she intends to remain a part of this meeting.

“Alright, you can stay if you want,” Villanelle says, and resumes speaking to Nadia in Russian.

Eve groans and gets up, grabbing her bag from the foyer, and stomping up the stairs like a disgruntled teen.

The hot steam of her first shower in a week is blissful, but not enough to distract her from the night’s events. She sees Niko’s shampoo on the shelf, his electric razor on the counter, one of his dirty towels in the hamper. All perfectly undisturbed relics of his life, which, Eve realizes, must’ve ended hardly an hour ago. 

If they’d caught an earlier flight from Ireland, or hadn’t had to wait fifteen minutes for a cab, Niko might still be alive.

But it happened, and Eve can’t change it now. Much as she wants to stake Nadia (and she hasn’t ruled it out completely), she knows doing so won’t bring Niko back. 

So she dries herself, changes into a fresh pair of pajamas (all her clothes were exactly as she left them; a small comfort to know Niko hadn’t started clearing out her things), and tucks herself into her bed. Though she’s dreamed of this moment every night (or rather, day) for the past month, she can’t enjoy it.

Partly because the empty space next to her where Niko’s body should be reminds her of where Niko’s body currently is, and how it’s just that now, a _body_ , and that fills her with a cocktail of fury and sadness that runs absolutely contrary to sleep. 

Partly because she’s grown so used to sleeping in a car, or a barn, or just plain outside, that the soft embrace of a proper bed feels wrong to her.

But mainly because she can hear those two stupid vampires chattering away downstairs. Mostly low murmuring in Russian at first, but the tone seems to lighten after the first half hour, becomes upbeat, increases in volume, sprinkled with laughs. What the hell are they talking about?

At some point exhaustion takes over and she drifts off, but she wakes some time later to Villanelle climbing into bed next to her.

“Feel better?” Villanelle asks softly.

Eve turns to her other side, away from Villanelle. Villanelle seems to interpret this as simply a move for the sake of comfort, and slips into bed – in Niko’s place – and reaches an arm around Eve.

Eve turns again, throwing Villanelle’s arm off. “Don’t touch me.”

“What’s wrong?”

Eve raises her head off the pillow. “Do you seriously not know?”

Villanelle’s eyes shine even in the low light, confused, pleading. A total puppy-dog look.

Eve reaches over to turn on the light on her nightstand, swinging her legs over the side of the bed. “I can’t. This is what I get, right? This is the kind of idiocy I signed up for in hanging out with a vampire. I have only myself to blame.”

“You’re being weird, Eve.”

“I’m being weird?” Eve demands, turning her head to glare at Villanelle. “ _I’m_ being weird. Hah.”

“Do you not want me up here?” Villanelle pouts. “I have gotten so used to sleeping next to you. But if you want to send me away, I can go share the couch with Nadia–”

“She’s still downstairs?” Eve asks. “She’s _staying_?”

“There’s a lot going on, and–”

“Yeah, sure, lots to talk about in Russian.”

Villanelle sighs. “This… situation… is going to require some action. And some cooperation.”

“Cooperation with Niko’s murderer.”

“Hey,” Villanelle cries defensively. “She didn’t know. You can’t hold that against her.”

“She killed my husband.”

“Yeah, but you were going to leave him anyway.”

Eve rises and starts pacing, as runs her fingers through her hair. “I can’t fucking believe you.”

“What’s done is done, there’s no use staying mad about it.”

Eve wheels on Villanelle. “Someone I knew for eighteen years. Shared a bed with for fifteen. Someone I worked with, and fought with, and cooked with, and laughed with, and got bored with, and compromised with, is dead. Gone. Erased. And to her it’s just a snack, and she’ll have another tomorrow.”

“Exactly,” Villanelle shrugs, completely unaffected by Eve’s speech. “Not personal. Get over it.”

“What do you mean ‘get over it’?”

“Eve, are you a vegetarian?”

Eve can sense where this is headed, and rolls her eyes. “No, but–”

“When you eat a steak, do you go apologize to that cow’s husband and mother and brother?”

“That is _not_ the same, and you know it.”

“You’re right,” Villanelle snaps. “It’s not the same, because you could stop eating cows if you wanted to. We cannot stop drinking blood.”

“Yes, but you can drink without killing people.”

Villanelle falls silent. 

“Ha!” Eve exclaims. “You can’t lie to me about that, because I know it’s possible. Because you didn’t kill me.”

“That was a special case,” Villanelle says quietly. 

“So what you’re saying is, you’re a vampire and you’ll kill whoever you want and I just have to deal with it?”

“I thought this was about Nadia,” Villanelle says. “Why does it suddenly feel like it’s about me?”

“Maybe you _should_ go sleep downstairs,” Eve growls. “Get cozy with Nadia. You two are perfect for each other.” Eve shoves Villanelle off the bed and throws a pillow at her.

Villanelle gives a short chuckle. “We’re not.”

“You won’t know that until you give it the old college try.” Eve grabs Villanelle by the shoulders and drags her over to the door. She knows it’s an act, that Villanelle is allowing Eve to push her around, but Eve derives some pleasure from kicking her out nonetheless.

“Eve, listen, there is no need to be jealous.”

“Get out of here.” Eve shoves Villanelle out into the hallway.

“Nothing will happen between Nadia and me,” Villanelle says, a trace more seriousness in her voice.

“You seemed flirty enough with her before.”

Villanelle tilts her head, as if stating the obvious. “She is my ex.”

Eve slams the bedroom door in Villanelle’s face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bringin' this update quick because starting tomorrow I descend into Animal Crossing land for who knows how long.
> 
> what do you all think?
> 
> chat about dramatic vamps or AC or anything else with me on [tumblr](https://imunbreakabledude.tumblr.com/) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/not_breakable) <3


	3. History

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Villanelle, Nadia, and Eve travel in search of an old acquaintance who may be able to shed some light on why so many vampires are disappearing.

Eve wakes up early after a day of subpar sleep, “early” in this case meaning five-thirty in the evening. A glance out the window shows the sky greying as the sun sinks, but it’s still light.

With any luck, the vampires will still be asleep, and Eve can make herself some coffee and breakfast in peace before they wake up and resume treating her like an incompetent child.

After brushing her teeth (with her electric toothbrush, at a real sink, bliss!) and changing into new clothes (a clean outfit, also bliss!), she creeps downstairs, muting her footsteps as much as she can, not wanting to trigger the vampires’ sensitive hearing.

Carefully rounding the corner into the kitchen, Eve almost has a heart attack when she finds that one of the chairs is occupied. Nadia is seated at the kitchen table, literally twiddling her thumbs, looking bored and somewhat uncomfortable.

Once she recovers her ability to breathe, Eve rolls her eyes and begins the process of brewing coffee, ignoring Nadia’s presence completely. What can she even say? It takes all of her resolve to focus on filling the coffee pot and not run to grab her stake and make an insane attempt to avenge Niko. The wiser part of Eve knows that if she tried, Nadia would make short work of her, and she’d be quickly reunited with Niko – or at least, her blood would be.

“I didn’t know he was important.”

Eve stiffens at the mumbled sentence, the half-apology mangled by Nadia’s thick accent and lack of remorse in her voice. She wants to scream, wants to fly at Nadia and attack her, scratching madly. No, she wants to grab one of the chairs, snap off the leg, and drive the wooden point through Nadia’s heart. But she’s learned, though she was slow to the lesson at first, that it is unwise for a human to take on a vampire one-on-one. So she swallows her anger, and treads lightly.

Eve turns to face Nadia, tight lipped. “Everyone’s important to somebody,” she says in her most diplomatic voice.

Nadia either takes this as a sign of forgiveness, or simply doesn’t care. Either way, it seems like the matter is closed, and Eve decides to stare at the water dripping into the coffeepot rather than look at Nadia’s face a second longer.

“She is still a heavy sleeper,” Nadia grunts.

Eve doesn’t respond, but peeks into the living room, seeing that Villanelle is still sound asleep on the couch. Wait… still asleep on the…

She whips around to Nadia. “Where is Niko?”

Nadia holds her hands up defensively. “We took him outside. We buried him properly. Oksana said that is what you would want.”

“Buried him where?”

“In the garden,” Nadia says. The sparks inside Eve smolder, but start to die out. Niko is in the garden. Among his hydroponic plants, next to the chicken coop… that is where Niko would want to be. (Well, besides his family’s plot in Poland, but that isn’t a realistic option at the moment).   
She’s quite sure that the vampires only did that because of convenience, but they stumbled their way into a genuinely kind gesture.

“Thank you,” Eve mutters.

Nadia simply nods. She and Eve have reached a tenuous truce, it seems. Whether or not it will last once Villanelle wakes up, Eve can’t say, but she may as well make the most of it for now. She’s sick of being the third wheel.

She pours the freshly brewed coffee into a mug and sits down across from Nadia. “How long have you two known each other?”

“Since we were humans,” Nadia replies. “We went through the change together. We learned the ways of the night together.”

“And you were together in other ways as well,” Eve says.

“For a time,” Nadia replies.

“Why did it end?” Eve asks. She feels emboldened, because if Nadia hasn’t killed her, or at least threatened her, thus far, it probably means that Villanelle made it clear to Nadia that Eve is off-limits. Which means she’s safe to push her luck a little bit.

“She dumped me,” Nadia says.

“Why?” Eve presses. If she’s going to push her luck, she might as well go all the way.

“She said she does not like vampires.”

Eve spits out her coffee, laughing, then realizes from the look on Nadia’s face that she is not joking.

“My ears are burning,” comes a voice from the other room. “Are you two gossiping about me like a pair of grandmothers?”

Nadia shoots Eve a knowing look, a tired look. Here we go, that look says. All things considered, Eve doesn’t like Nadia, but she’s growing to tolerate her, at least.

Villanelle appears in the kitchen, bright and perky already despite waking up only moments ago. “Friends already?”

“All ready for some cooperation,” Eve says. “Am I allowed to know what’s going on now?”

But Villanelle isn’t paying attention, she’s peeking through the curtains to asses the sun’s progress towards the horizon. “Only a few minutes until sunset; we need to get ready to go.” She’s assessing Nadia now with disdain. “And you need to clean yourself up. You’re a mess.”

“Go where?” Eve demands.

“We will fill you in on the train.”

  
An hour later, they’re seated in the back of a train heading to Bristol. Eve by the window, next to Villanelle, and Nadia in the row in front of them, with an empty seat; they purchased the fourth ticket to ensure a small amount of privacy. 

While the nighttime sky blurs by outside the window, Villanelle finally, finally relents and agrees to answer all of Eve’s questions. 

“You already know about my human life, don’t you, Eve?”

“Some,” Eve says. Though she felt extremely proud to know Villanelle’s human identity back when they were first playing their cat-and-mouse game, the last twenty-four hours have proven how litte she really knows about what Villanelle was doing before she met Eve.

“I will skip the beginning. It’s very boring. School this, disciplinary institution that. I’ll start when I met Nadia. In prison.”

“It was not a nice place,” Nadia says, leaning over the seat-back in front of them. “It was better to stick together. So we did.”

 _Stick together._ Eve isn’t sure if she finds the obvious euphemistic phrasing annoying, or thoughtful. She doesn’t want to dwell too much on what Oksana and Nadia must’ve gotten into while locked up together.

“I was three years into my sentence when Nadia heard from a man, a visiting doctor, who said he could help us get out.”

“Like magic, he said,” Nadia murmurs. “And it was.”

“He turned you?” Eve asks. “And he didn’t ask for anything in return?”

“Well…” Nadia begins.

“Don’t interrupt, Eve,” Villanelle says. “One night, he came to get us from our cells, and brought us to the infirmary. Whatever he did… It is impossible to remember, all black except for a lot of pain. Then we woke up and we were changed.”

“Right away, everything different,” Nadia murmurs. “Like being born, if you could remember every detail of it.”

“He took us traveling with him, showed us what we needed to know to survive. For a few months. But then he wanted us to be part of his coven… Basically follow him around forever, and become his little handmaidens. Didn’t care for that. So we left.”

“Oksana left,” Nadia says pointedly, and there’s a tense pause, as if she’s offering Villanelle a chance to cut in. Villanelle remains silent, so Nadia continues, “We talked about running together. But then one night I wake up to find she ditched me.”

“I knew you could take care of yourself,” Villanelle says sweetly. “That is all behind us, right?”

Nadia glowers at her, but says nothing.

“So what does that have to do with this ‘situation’ at hand? With these vampires disappearing across Europe?”

“We believe there is safety in numbers,” Villanelle says. “So we are going to pay Vladimir a visit. See if he knows more than we do. Last I heard, he was in Bristol, passing himself off as a human schoolteacher. He went soft after we left him.”

Eve lets that sink in for a moment. She is about to meet her second new vampire in as many days. Not just any vampire – the one who was responsible for turning Villanelle. Her stomach begins to flutter with anticipation.

“And this… whoever it is, who’s doing the killing,” Eve says, steeling herself to be laughed at again. “How can you be so sure it isn’t the Silver League?”

Villanelle smiles in a pitying way, and reaches out to rub Eve’s arm on the armrest. “The only vampires that actually get killed by those humans that play ‘slayer’ are weaklings and bottom feeders. No self respecting vampire even thinks about them, except for having a bit of fun.”

“It has to be a vampire,” Nadia says, her fearful tone a stark contrast to Villanelle’s joking manner. “Deadly. Efficient. Undetected. In the whispers… They call it ‘the Ghost’.”

“A vampire called ‘Ghost’?” Eve says, stifling a chuckle.

“Silly name,” Villanelle says.

“Look who’s talking,” Eve says, poking her. “The ‘Demon with No Face’.”

“That’s what they call me?” Villanelle says, with surprise and delight.

“Don’t let it flatter you.”

“It is better than ‘Ghost’,” Villanelle says, then pouts. “But my face is my best feature!”

Eve snorts, but then she notices Villanelle gazing past her, out the train window… wait, not _out_ the window, but _at_ the window, where her reflection should be. Eve’s lone reflection stares back at both of them with pity.

Once they arrive in Bristol, they jointly decide (or rather, the two vampires decide, and Eve nods along to feel part of it), that Nadia will go ahead to scout out the school where Vladimir supposedly works, try to find a recent scent trail, and report back in an hour with her findings.

While they wait in the station lobby, Eve buys herself an enormous pretzel from the snack stand, covered in cinnamon and sugar, then they plop down on the cleanest-looking bench they can find.

“How are you doing?” Villanelle asks gently. She eyes Eve’s sugary snack choice with concern. 

“I hate being the only human in the room,” Eve grumbles.

“It doesn’t make you feel special?” Villanelle says, reaching out to run a hand through Eve’s curls, one of her favorite habits in their downtime.

“It makes me feel useless,” Eve mutters, picking off a bit of pretzel.

Villanelle doesn’t offer any hollow denial of this, which Eve appreciates, but rather, lets her hand wander down from Eve’s hair to trace along the bite scar on her neck.

“Weird question,” Eve says, as it occurs to her suddenly. “Where’s your scar?”

“Hm?”

“I mean, I’ve seen most all of your body,” Eve blurts out. “And you don’t have a bite scar anywhere. Does it disappear once you turn?”

“You have seen my scar,” Villanelle says.

“What?” Eve says, baffled. “Where?”

Villanelle rolls up her sleeve and points to a small white line on the inside of her forearm, just below the elbow, like where an IV would be inserted.

“Why is it not a bite?”

Villanelle shrugs, and rolls her sleeve back down. “I told you. I don’t remember.”

“But we’re about to meet the guy who turned you, right?”

“Yes…”

“So we can ask him how it’s done,” Eve says, excitement building. “And then you can turn me.”

Villanelle looks down at her feet and takes a deep breath before responding. “I do not know if that’s a good idea.”

“If there’s some ‘Ghost’ going around that spooks even you and Nadia, I think anything that makes me more durable is definitely a good idea.”

“Believe it or not, I am thinking of what’s best for you, Eve.”

“And what’s ‘best’ for me is to remain soft and squishy and breakable?”

“Yes.”

“Really?”

“ _Really,_ ” Villanelle snaps back in a mocking tone.

“Can you at least–”

“The truth is, I don’t want to turn you because I don’t think you can handle it.”

Eve scoffs. “Can’t handle–?!”

“You get so upset every time I have to kill someone, Eve,” Villanelle snaps, somehow sounding irritated and weary at the same time. “Like the end of the world, every single time. If you become a vampire, that will be _you_. No more moral superiority. Just you, doing the thing you hate me for doing, forever.”

Eve opens her mouth to argue, instinctively, but Villanelle’s response has robbed her of words. She doesn’t want to admit it, but Villanelle has a frustratingly pertinent point. Before she can come up with a way to keep her dignity and get the last word in, she senses someone approaching, and looks up to see that Nadia has reappeared.

“I found him,” she says. “Not just his scent. He’s here.”

  
Nadia leads the way to a boy’s secondary school about two kilometers away. Eve walks as fast as she can, but she can sense the unspoken impatience of the vampires slowing down so as not to leave her behind. Truthfully, she’s shocked that Villanelle is allowing her to accompany them on this journey; though she realizes that must mean that Villanelle believes it to be more dangerous for her to be left alone, even at a distance.

Finally, they approach the school campus, which is locked up for the night, but of course the vampires are able to sneak in with ease. Villanelle commands Eve to hold on tight, then carries her on her back as she climbs the fence around the school building.

They break through the lock on the entrance with similar ease, and stroll in with little regard for stealth. Eve spots a security camera by the entrance, and takes care to stay as far out of its angle of view as possible – the last thing she needs is to be caught on film as the only person breaking into this school.

Villanelle is keeping pace with Nadia now, and both are speeding up subconsciously as they navigate the school hallways – Eve supposes they both must have caught Vladimir’s scent.

They finally come to an office door, which, handily enough, is labeled with Vladimir’s name. It appears he was playing the role of human teacher rather seriously.

“Ready?” Nadia mutters to Villanelle, who doesn’t bother answering, and pushes the door open.

Though Eve has never met him before, she’s quite sure that the vampire they find standing inside is not Vladimir.

A lithe Asian woman, even smaller in stature than Eve, stands in front of the large desk that takes up much of the office. One of her hands holds a thick silver chain, the other end of which dangles to the ground. Her other hand tightly grips a long wooden stake. At her feet sits a pile of ash-gray dust.

“It is my lucky day,” she says, assessing their arrival. “Thank you for saving me a trip to London.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oooooooooooh here comes the plot y'all!
> 
> let me know your thoughts down below
> 
> or come annoy me on [tumblr](https://imunbreakabledude.tumblr.com/) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/not_breakable)


	4. Descent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Faced with the mysterious "Ghost" who has been killing vampires left and right, Eve, Villanelle, and Nadia must fight for their lives.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning - this chapter contains more graphic violence than the rest of the fic. So prepare yourself or skip to the end accordingly.

“Eve, go hide,” Villanelle commands as she places herself in front of the doorway, between Eve and the small vampire woman in front of them.

The woman – this “ghost” all the other vampires are scared of – doesn’t look especially threatening to Eve. Hair pulled back in a sensible bun, clad in a soft grey sweater and loose pants, she looks like a middle-aged woman Eve might spot at the grocery store or in the park with her children. That is, if Eve ignores the stake and chain she’s wielding. 

The Ghost steps forward calmly. “The human is not in any danger. I have no quarrel with her.”

Villanelle laughs. “Of course she isn’t in danger. I just don’t want her to have to watch me rip you to pieces.”

Villanelle’s unabashed confidence, paired with the delight with which she pronounces the word _rip_ , sends a quake through Eve. Eve backs up instinctively, until she stumbles into the hallway wall, feeling a doorknob from dig into her back. But something else is digging into her back, too: her stake. She actually thought ahead to bring it with her, and not buried in a bag; it’s tucked in her back pocket. Her right hand sneaks back to grip it, but she doesn’t dare draw it out, because she senses that if she were to show a weapon, the Ghost might reconsider her decision to leave Eve alone.

The three vampires, all hunched, baring their teeth, eye each other carefully. Eve half expects them to break out snarling like tigers while they stalk around in a circle, but then, like lightning, the Ghost makes the first move.

A _whoosh_ and a silver blur as the Ghost whips her chain out so one end hits Nadia’s ankles, tangling her up. As she stumbles, the Ghost lunges at her with the stake, but then just as quickly, Villanelle is there, sinking her teeth into the Ghost’s upper arm.

The Ghost contorts wildly and throws her off, but Villanelle’s teeth tore a chunk out of her shirt, and also, from her arm flesh.

The three vampires continue to trade blows at breakneck speed. Villanelle and Nadia work well as a team, keeping the Ghost off balance with alternating strikes, but even against the two of them, she holds her own incredibly well. Her arms seem to work independently of one another, swiping at Nadia’s chest with the stake while she whips out the chain to catch Villanelle across the face. 

It’s all moving so fast Eve can barely keep track with her human brain-processing speed. It must have been only been forty, fifty seconds of real time, but with the vampires’ super speed, it’s like the fight has been going on for several minutes at least.

Eve’s eyes are just starting to adjust to the speed of the fight when she sees Villanelle and Nadia exchange a look – a look that can only mean, “let’s finish this”.

Villanelle digs her fingers into the Ghost’s thin black hair and yanks her back by her bun, while Nadia goes for her hands and knocks the stake free. At the same time, Nadia’s arm is extended, making an appealing target. Even as her head is wrenched back by Villanelle, the Ghost manages to grab onto Nadia’s arm and wrench it from its socket with a sickening pop. 

Nadia cries out. Eve supposes even with a supernatural tolerance for pain, a dislocated limb is not a comfy feeling. She staggers back, using her left arm to grasp at her limp right arm, trying in vain to put it back.

Meanwhile, with Nadia indisposed, the Ghost throws an elbow back into Villanelle’s solar plexus and knock the wind out of her, forcing her to lose her grip on the Ghost’s hair. Villanelle stumbles a step or two, catching her breath.

“If you give in, I will make it painless,” the Ghost says calmly.

Nadia’s eyes widen, like she’s seriously considering the offer. But Villanelle is never one to back down, and charges at the Ghost head-on, like a rhinoceros, only with more teeth.

The Ghost not only easily sidesteps the charge, she also manages in one smooth motion to loop her silver chain around Villanelle’s neck like a noose. And just like that, Villanelle is stopped short, as the Ghost pulls the chain tighter, and all Villanelle can do is pry at it uselessly.

 _Can vampires suffocate?_ Eve wonders. Probably not – Villanelle has hidden in airless spaces for long periods before, she must not need oxygen to live, or at least not much of it – but from the bulge of Villanelle’s eyes, and the purpling of her lips, Eve can tell that strangulation is still not a healthy pastime for her.

But it won’t matter, in a minute, because Nadia will attack and make the Ghost drop the chain… right? Eve darts a glance over to Nadia, who is still backed up against the wall, clutching her limp arm, frozen in fear.

“I’m sorry, Oksana,” she says softly. “But now, we are even.” Then, in the blink of an eye, she’s gone. Run off down the hallway at top speed. Broken the window at the end of the hallway, leapt to the ground. Disappeared into the night.

And Villanelle has no chance to react, no ability to produce any sound at all other than a meek, tiny sound of choking.

Placid as ever, the Ghost walks over to pick up her stake from where it skittered to the corner of the ground, dragging the helpless Villanelle along with her.

A wave of panic rushes through Eve as she realizes there is no one else left to stop what is about to happen. Maybe Villanelle will break free, somehow. She always has before. But as her face goes grey, and the Ghost picks up the stake…

“Hey! Over here!” The words are out of Eve’s mouth before she even realizes it’s her saying them. The voice sounds much more confident than Eve feels, so it can’t really be her, can it? But now her hands are moving too, pulling out her stake and brandishing it proudly. “Stop or I’ll slay you.” Not exactly Buffy-level banter, but Eve is amazed she got anything out at all.

The Ghost looks up, disinterested. She looks over Eve for about half a second, then decides Eve is not a threat to be taken seriously, and returns to positioning Villanelle’s body, so that her stake can find easy access to the heart…

Eve has no choice left. She screams and charges, stake aloft in the air, running full-tilt towards the vampire.

A blur, and the ground is gone – the Ghost sends Eve flying against the wall with a single swipe of her arm. The impact is like a car crash. Eve’s head rings; she sees stars. At least she tried. When she dies, in a few minutes, at least she won’t have to wonder, “what if…”

But by the time her vision begins to clear, she sees that her suicide mission was not in vain, because it made the Ghost allow just the tiniest bit of slack in her grip on the chain, and Villanelle has escaped. Her neck is already purple and black with bruises, but she is free, and absolutely enraged. 

Villanelle grabs the chain, yanking it from the Ghost’s grip, then kicks the her in the torso, forcing her to the ground. Villanelle immediately pins her, then wraps her arms tightly in the chain. The Ghost is also not one to give up though, and is furiously kicking with her legs.

Once Villanelle notes that the chain is tied tightly around her wrists, she takes the Ghost’s leg in her two hands, and snaps it, below the knee. No hesitation, no special ceremony – just like snapping a twig. Even the absolutely stoic Ghost has to scream in pain at her tibia and fibula breaking simultaneously.

“Would you like me to do the other one, as well?” Villanelle asks, a dark melody of pleasure in her cruel tone. 

The Ghost answers by squirming her body and kicking out once again in a desperate attempt to escape, so Villanelle grabs the other leg and snaps it the same way. 

Eve’s dizziness has now cleared enough for her to sit up. Not quite enough to stand, yet, but she can crawl, so she does, she crawls across the floor, closer to the two entangled vampires. Only a couple meters, but it feels like much longer.

“Eve, stay back,” Villanelle cautions.

But Eve closes the distance, because she has something important: her stake. She holds it out for Villanelle to take, to finish the job.

“We are not letting her off that easy,” Villanelle says, then grins down at her prisoner. “I am not so nice as you. This will not be painless.” She bends down low, close to the Ghost’s face, and taps her on the nose playfully. The Ghost snaps her teeth, but it’s useless. Villanelle has her absolutely pinned. “Now, should I ever bother asking you why you’re killing all these vampires, or should I save us some time and skip ahead to the torture?”

The Ghost remains stony-faced, silent. Villanelle rolls her eyes and gets up.

“What are you doing?” Eve gasps. “She’ll–”

“She’s not going anywhere,” Villanelle says, standing, with one foot atop the Ghost’s chest. “Legs are useless, and now…” Villanelle presses down slightly with her foot, and Eve hears a faint crackle, like popcorn. “Crawling will hurt a lot with broken ribs.”

“But her hands…” Eve says.

“This chain is silver,” Villanelle says, showing how the chain glints brightly in the low moonlight from the broken window. “Pure silver is the one substance we can’t bend or break. It saps our strength.”

And with that, to demonstrate her point, Villanelle takes her foot off of the Ghost, and waits a few seconds to see if she moves. Other than a slight stirring from her labored breathing, she remains still. 

Villanelle bends down to Eve’s level on the floor, takes her face in her hands, and kisses her gently. “You are very brave. Thank you.” Then she stands, and begins walking away.

“Where are you going?” Eve sputters. “Don’t leave me with her!”

“I will be back in four seconds,” Villanelle says, then in a blur, she’s vanished, moving at her vampire speed.

Eve counts slowly to four in her head, not taking her eyes off of the crumpled form of the Ghost the entire time. As promised, Villanelle appears just as Eve gets through “Four-Mississippi”. She’s now holding a translucent plastic container full of clear liquid.

Eve scoots closer as Villanelle returns to her previous position of sitting on top of the Ghost’s chest. She pulls the plastic bottle closer and uncaps it, sniffing the opening and wincing. “One more chance, because I am honorable,” Villanelle says. “What is your endgame?”

No response.

Villanelle slowly, slowly tips the bottle forward, until a few drops spill out, then immediately pulls back. The drops land on the Ghost’s chest, in the hollow of her collarbone, and sizzle audibly when they reach her skin. The Ghost’s face twists in pain, but her mouth remains shut.

Eve can’t help but gasp. “Is that…” She is hesitant to ask, but stakes, silver, and sunlight have all turned out to be true, so... “Is that holy water?”

Villanelle throws her head back, laughing heartily. “Humans are so silly. Why would water be changed at all because someone says a blessing over it? No, everything is chemistry. This is hydrochloric acid, thirty percent solution. Found it in the lab room over there.” Villanelle shakes the bottle playfully, letting the corrosive acid swish around inside. Then she frowns. “You should probably move away, Eve. I don’t think it’s good for human lungs to breathe this in.”

Eve shifts back a few steps, but still close enough to watch the show. Although her stomach turns seeing the burns on the Ghost’s skin in the same shape as the acid droplets, she can’t look away – it would be even more frightening to hear the sounds and not know what Villanelle is doing.

While Eve holds her breath, Villanelle carefully pours a few more drops of acid onto the Ghost’s face. “Who are you and what are you after?” She asks, her voice disturbingly flat.

Though her face is visibly pained, the Ghost still grits her teeth. Villanelle tips the bottle, then pauses, reconsidering, and switches her aim to the upper arm, this time pouring a huge splash of acid right into the wound she’d left with her teeth a few minutes ago, eliciting a ghastly scream in response. Eve forces herself to avert her gaze from the wound; it’s too much.

“Stop!” The Ghost gasps. “That’s enough. I will tell you.”

“Good,” Villanelle says, smiling slightly, and placing the jug of acid down on the floor. “Why have you been chasing down lone vampires who haven’t provoked you?”

“I was hired,” the Ghost manages, still struggling to speak from the pain. “Not hired. Forced.”

“By who?”

“The Peel estate.”

Villanelle’s face darkens at this name, though Eve has never heard it before. “Why?”

The Ghost breathes heavily, as she says, “I was given orders and told only what I needed to know. Track down lone vampires across Europe. Give them a choice: swear allegiance and report to Rome for further instruction, or die.”

“You didn’t give us a choice,” Villanelle says, then idly reaches for the jug again.

The Ghost’s eyes widen, and she quickly adds, “I was given some names.” 

“Really?” Villanelle’s interest is piqued at that.

“High priority targets to eliminate first. But for others I encountered along the way, they were to be given a choice.”

Villanelle turns to Eve, a little too excited, given the circumstances. “Did you hear that? I am high-priority.”

“Not you,” The Ghost says. “Your companion. She escaped from me before. She knew too much. And now she has escaped again…”

“Don’t worry about her,” Villanelle coos, in an eerily soothing manner. “She is a coward. She will never come near your bosses. From the start, you should have worried more about me.”

Villanelle extends her hand, palm up, and Eve realizes after a few seconds that she’s waiting for Eve to hand her the stake. But Eve waits, and clutches it closely.

“What are you waiting for?” Villanelle demands.

“I’m not going to watch you kill her,” Eve says.

“I have to,” Villanelle says in a slow, patronizing tone. “Or else she will heal in a day, or two, and come after us.”

Eve swallows, and grips the stake firmly. “I want to do it.”

Villanelle blinks twice, but then, when Eve does not hem or haw or relent, she shifts aside, allowing Eve to take her place over the Ghosts’s chest, holding the vampire’s hands out of the way so Eve has a clear shot at the heart.

For all that Eve considers herself “experienced” with vampires, from her brief stint on the Silver League’s payroll, to getting to know Villanelle rather intimately, she has held stakes many times, and pictured staking vampires, most of all Villanelle, plenty more. But never has she done the deed in real life.

Eve centers her weight, so she will be able to finish it in one decisive swing. The last thing she wants is to miss the heart and look like a fool. She remembers what Jess taught her on her first day at the Silver League, which feels a lifetime ago: _right side of the left tit_. As she places the point of the stake against the Ghost’s chest, she asks, “Any last words?”

The Ghost looks oddly serene as she murmurs, “I had no choice in this. If I did not follow orders, they would kill me. I was doing what I had to do to survive.”

“So am I,” Eve says.

Flashing back to the first moment when she practiced staking on her office pillow, she swings the wooden point down with all her might. A brief feeling of resistance, then a rush of nothingness.

Eve screws her eyes shut at the explosion of dust into her face, then falls the short distance to the floor as the body beneath her vanishes. She reaches down to run a hand through the pile of dust. It’s almost like ash, or like a very fine and soft sand. She idly wonders what the school custodian will think upon finding this mess in the hallway the next day.

“You did it.” Eve whips her head around at the sound of Villanelle’s voice, having almost forgotten she was there. “How did it feel?”

“Dry,” Eve says, coughing up a few more dust particles and wiping her face on her sleeve, though it doesn’t help much since the entire front of her body is coated with the stuff. 

Villanelle crawls close, and offers her own sleeve, swiping Eve’s face, then kissing her, a long and deep kiss. 

Eve could almost sit there all night, but eventually, she breaks away. The rush of her own blood roars in her ears; the adrenaline from the fight has not left, and seems poised to stick around for a while yet. Blindly, she reaches through the pile of dust until her fingers close around cool metal. She draws the chain close, and holds it up. “So you can’t escape from silver, huh?”

“No,” Villanelle says, softly.

Eve pulls one end of the chain, running it through the fingers of her other hand. She likes the rough sensation as each link rattles against her palm in rhythm. Carefully, she guides the chain around Villanelle’s wrists. Villanelle puts up no resistance as Eve winds it tightly, then fastens it. 

“Lie back,” Eve says, and Villanelle obliges immediately, lying down on the dusty school floor, and raising her bound hands up above her head as Eve dips down over her to kiss her again.

Eve lets her mouth drift down to Villanelle’s neck. _Is this what it feels like,_ she wonders? There’s no hot rush of blood, but somehow, all her senses feel heightened by the adrenaline, and she swears, she can smell Villanelle’s scent as strongly as any vampire could smell her. She presses her lips against Villanelle’s cold skin. Lets her teeth graze against the flesh – not biting. But imagining. Villanelle trembles underneath her. Is she imagining, too? Or maybe not imagining – maybe _remembering_. What it felt like to be vulnerable, to be mortal? To fear death may come any instant, to feel her pulse race faster and faster as danger looms?

Eve’s hand reaches out again, as if by its own accord, and retrieves the stake from the floor. She places the wooden point against Villanelle’s cheek, the grazes it slowly down the slope of her chin, down her neck, past her collarbone, finally coming to rest over her heart.

“Who are you?” Villanelle breathes softly. She almost, _almost_ looks scared. 

“Listen,” Eve says. “When we leave here, we’re going to do a little research. We’ll find out more about her bosses. But we’ll also find out how to turn a human. And then you will do it to me. Is that understood?”

Villanelle nods almost imperceptibly, eyes locked with Eve’s, not even blinking.

Words echo dimly in Eve’s brain as she straddles Villanelle, pressing the wooden point of the stake dangerously close to one vulnerable part of her, while her left hand sneaks down to the other vulnerable part. _Who are you?_

Huge question.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one was a doozy to write
> 
> please let me know your thoughts :)
> 
> or come give a shout on [tumblr](https://imunbreakabledude.tumblr.com/) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/not_breakable) xo


	5. Detonate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eve convinces Villanelle to pick a fight with the Peels, then her research uncovers a bombshell of a different type than she expected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter turned out about twice as long as I expected it to, so uh... I hope it came out alright.

Eve never wants to move from this spot again.

Not a thought she expected to have while lying half-naked in a pile of dust in the hallway of a boys’ secondary school in Bristol in the wee hours of morning. But in spite of all that, her body is wrapped around Villanelle’s, and that’s all that matters to Eve in this moment. They lie still, the only motion from Eve’s breathing, both completely spent from killing a vampiric assassin, and the subsequent lovemaking.

Eve could live in this moment forever, if not for one inconvenience: both of her arms are asleep.

The pins-and-needles creeping all the way up to Eve’s shoulders are growing increasingly unbearable, but as Eve’s arms are well and truly stuck around her little spoon, there seems to be little chance of extrication. But Eve has no choice, she has to move or she’ll go crazy. Tentatively, she turns, trying to go as gently as she can, but with her numbness she has little control and yanks her entire arm from underneath Villanelle.

“Sorry,” Eve mumbles as she frantically shakes her arms to try to get the blood flowing.

Villanelle says nothing, but beams up at Eve. “I was thinking,” she says. “We should go to Alaska.”

“Alaska?” Eve replies, flexing her fingers as the sensation gradually returns. “Why?”

“It is very far away, for one, so once the big baddies get wind that we killed their assassin we will be out of reach,” As Villanelle talks, she lets one finger trace up and down Eve’s arm, producing a strange ghostly tickle. “No one to disturb us. Plus, there’s not much sunlight, which means more time for us to be out and about together…”

“That could be nice,” Eve replies.

“I’ll look up flights.” Villanelle shifts and reaches for her shirt where it was carelessly tossed on the floor an hour or two ago. Her body is paler than ever in the moonlight, broken up only by battle scars. Although, the bruises on her neck from the chain, as well as the scratches Eve left on her back shortly thereafter, already seem to already be vanishing, thanks to Villanelle’s vampiric healing.

“If we hurry, we can make it to the airport before sunup,” Villanelle says. “I try to avoid daytime flights, but we can close the window shade.”

Eve frowns. “You don’t mean _now?_ ”

Villanelle snorts as she buttons up her shirt. “Don’t tell me you need more ‘stuff’ and ‘things’ from home…”

Eve props herself up. “We just killed an assassin.”

Villanelle nods. “Making this the perfect window to leave, before they send someone else.” Then she whirls her head around. “Where did my pants go?”

“I don’t know about you but I’m tired of running,” Eve says, calling forth the gravelly, commanding tone she’d used while binding Villanelle in chains, which is enough to make Villanelle turn her head and put her search for her pants on pause. “I think we need to end this. Go right to the source.”

Villanelle prowls over to Eve like a fox, and presses her lips to Eve’s, plush and velvet, then chuckles, “You are so sexy when you’re picking fights you can’t possibly win.”

“Why not?” Eve says, and Villanelle just grins and goes back to crawling around looking for her clothes, but Eve continues, “The ‘Ghost’ is a ghost. She was their biggest threat, and we got rid of her, so we have the advantage now. Let’s strike again while they’re off kilter. Personally, I feel like anyone who sends someone else to do the dirty work can’t possibly be that tough.”

“Aha!” Villanelle says, from a few meters down the hallway, and holds up her pants triumphantly.

“Once we know for sure that no one is coming after us,” Eve says, as she begins crawling over to close the distance between her and Villanelle, “Then let’s talk about Alaska.”

Villanelle tilts her head, wraps her hands around Eve’s face and kisses her. “If that’s what you really want, then fine. We can do a little more violence before we leave the continent.”

“And research!” Eve adds. “Don’t forget the research.”

Once they’ve retrieved all the misplaced bits of clothing, they make haste in sneaking out of the school before anyone shows up. The sky lightens to the grayish-navy that promises dawn is on its way, meaning no time to deal with the train again. Instead, it’s a throwback to their month on the run as Villanelle breaks them into a random car. But there’s no time for her to black out the windows and bundle up, so she is forced to climb in the trunk while Eve drives them back to London, where they can regroup.

While sitting in morning traffic on the M4, Eve is presented with ample time to reflect on the night’s events.

She killed someone. Well, not “killed someone”: she slayed a vampire. But a vampire is a “someone” too, isn’t it? Wouldn’t she be upset if Villanelle were…

No. Not going there.

While she sits idling in bumper-to-bumper traffic, Eve steals a look at herself in the rearview mirror. For all that last night was a “transformation” for her, she doesn’t look any different. Same brown eyes, same thick hair, same scar hiding on the side of her neck.

She thought it’d feel more dramatic, her first time. After all, Carolyn had slain who-knows-how-many vampires and still looked back on her first with fondness…

But should Eve really be comparing herself to Carolyn? She’s not on the path of a vampire hunter anymore. Or is she? Did she not just win an argument in favor of taking on a group of malicious vampires? Is she still a “hunter” if she only wants to kill some vampires, but others…?

Eve is uprooted from her rumination as a truck cuts her off from her exit. “Use your signal, dickswab!” she bellows, laying on her horn. 

An agonizingly slow journey later, Eve finally reaches Villanelle’s building, and in a stroke of luck, finds a parking spot right outside.

Eve swivels her head around to make sure no one is watching her too closely, then knocks on the trunk. _Bang bang bang._ “Hey. How do you wanna do this? Do I leave you here all day?”

“Open up,” comes a rough bellow from inside.

“I can’t. I parked on the street. There’s no shade.”

“Open up,” repeats the very muffled voice.

 _If she burns, at least I can say I told you so,_ Eve thinks, as she pops open the trunk. But inside, she does not find Villanelle: there’s only some jumper cables, a blanket, and a suitcase.

“No way,” Eve says to herself. “No fucking way.”

“Get moving, Eve,” growls the suitcase. “This is not as comfortable as you’d expect.”

With great effort, Eve hauls the suitcase out onto the sidewalk, then drags it inside the building. She stops in the lobby, to pant, “You can get out now. I’m not hauling you up those stairs.”

A single finger pokes out from the suitcase zipper, and then Villanelle’s arm emerges, followed by the rest of her body. She takes a deep breath in as she smooths her mussed hair. “It’s good to be home.”

Eve snorts. “You were the one who was like, ‘We can’t possibly go back to London.’ Then the next day you’re claiming the Silver League isn’t dangerous.”

“Fine, they aren’t dangerous, but they are annoying,” Villanelle says, as she leads Eve up the stairwell. “Especially when we have to travel like this. Half the time, you slow me down, and the other half, I have to sit in a suitcase in the boot of a car.”

“That won’t be an issue anymore, as soon as I find out how you can turn me.”

“How do you plan to find it, exactly?” Villanelle says, her voice practically ringing with delight at the prospect of Eve failing. “Are you going to type into Bing search, ‘vampire, human, change?’”

“It’s never failed me before,” Eve snipes back. “I’d be shocked if the real answer isn’t floating around the internet somewhere. I bet there’s a page on WikiHow: ‘How to turn a human into a vampire’.”

They’ve reached the door to Villanelle’s apartment. Eve looks expectantly at Villanelle, wondering if she’ll pull out a key or break the door down, but she just turns the knob and walks in. Eve supposes there isn’t much reason for a vampire to keep the door bolted.

The room looks mostly the same as Eve remembers, except that it’s full of trash. Empty cereal boxes, takeout containers, and soda cans everywhere. In the middle of it all sits Konstantin, on the couch, in a rumpled, wrinkled sweater, his beard quite a bit longer than it was when Eve last saw him.

“Welcome home,” he deadpans.

Villanelle begins to laugh, a high and wild laugh like a hyena. “I knew I forgot about something!” She grasps Eve’s shoulder for support. “Eve, you should have reminded me!”

“Since when is that my job?” Eve says. She’d forgotten too, until this very moment: the last time they’d left this apartment together, Villanelle told Konstantin to wait in this spot until her next orders. Evidently, he’d been waiting the full month, not that he had any choice in the matter, as the vampire’s thrall.

“It’s a good thing you are not a goldfish,” Villanelle gasps through her laughs, wiping a tear from her eye. “You would be belly-up by now.”

Konstantin is not amused.

“Wait,” Eve says. “Don’t Carolyn and the others know you’re here? Why didn’t they help you?”

“They tried,” Konstantin says. “They would bring food and leave it by the door. But they could not get close, or else…” Konstantin reaches to the coffee table, underneath a bag of popcorn, and pulls out a gun. Eve recalls how the last time the Silver League tried to help Konstantin, he was forced by Villanelle’s previous orders to shoot himself if they tried to aid him in any escape.

“That really was one of my smartest ideas,” Villanelle says, finally coming down from her laughing fit. “Don’t worry. Now that we’re back, you can be useful again. Why don’t you order some food for Eve? Whatever she wants.”

Konstantin wearily rises and gets out his phone, then looks at Eve expectantly. “Uh, how about a pizza?” Eve suggests, feeling guilty, but, well, she’s starving.

Konstantin shuffles into the other room and begins calling a local pizza joint. Villanelle shoves aside some food wrappers and flops onto the couch. “What do you want to do after?”

“You should let him go,” Eve blurts.

“What?”

“It’s possible, right? You could set him free if you wanted to?”

“If I wanted to,” Villanelle says, suspiciously.

Eve goes to sit next to Villanelle on the couch. “The last thing we need right now is the Silver League showing up here while we’re dealing with a much bigger fight. If you free Konstantin, they have no reason to come after you anymore.”

Villanelle furrows her brow, considering the suggestion.

“You said yourself, they’re annoying,” Eve adds.

Villanelle frowns. “But he’s mine. I worked so hard to train him properly. He knows how I like things.”

Drawing some deep patience inside herself and ignoring the comparison of a human being to a pack animal, Eve reaches out to grasp Villanelle’s hand. “You don’t need him anymore. You have me.”

Villanelle inhales deeply, then calls out, “Konstantin?”

Konstantin appears in the living room once more. “Thirty to forty minutes,” he tells Eve.

“Konstantin,” Villanelle repeats. “This is an official order. You are no longer my thrall. You are free of my control and may do as you please.”

Konstantin looks confused, taken aback. For some reason, he looks down at his hands, flexing them, as if he’s just had invisible shackles removed. But he’s wise enough not to question this turn of events, and wastes no time in walking towards the exit.

“Wait,” Villanelle says, and Konstantin freezes at the door, perhaps out of habit. “Do you have anything you want to say?”

Konstantin shakes his head, and goes, closing the door behind him.

Villanelle pouts. “I thought he might say it,” she says. “Even if he didn’t have to.”

Eve remembers one of the stranger orders that Villanelle had given Konstantin: to always bid her farewell with a “love you”. What a strange notion, for her to actually believe he’d truly feel it, if not forced to say it. But Eve doesn’t dwell on this thought, and instead revels in her victory.

“So,” Eve says. “Now that we finally have a moment. Tell me about this 'Peel Estate' the Ghost mentioned.”

“I don’t know them myself, but all of us have heard of them. They are the biggest, most powerful vampire family in Europe.”

“Family, like the Mafia?”

“No, family like family,” Villanelle says. “The father, Alistair, turned his two children once they were adults. Together they have more or less ruled the night in Europe for the past century. And the day. And they’re pretty powerful in the human world, too.”

“What do you mean?”

“They have some successful business,” Villanelle says.

“Wait,” Eve says. “Peel as in ‘Peel Technologies’? They’re vampires?”

Villanelle shrugs. “You’d be surprised how many advancements have been made by vampires. With that much time on your hands, hobbies can turn into revolutions.”

“So what is this, then, a turf war?”

Villanelle pauses, thoughtful. “As far as I know, they are the ‘live and let live’ type. They don’t usually go after other vampires unless they are provoked. Something seems off.”

“We’ll find out what it is, then.”

Villanelle rubs Eve’s knee softly. “You know, it is not too late for us to go to Alaska…”

“Someday,” Eve says. “But first, research.”

This proves to be a hollow statement. As they wait for the pizza delivery, they sit on the couch, unmoving. Eve’s body is beginning to feel the fatigue of how long she’s been awake, but strangely she feels no drowsiness, no oncoming sleep, but only the contentedness of sitting still on the couch, with her head lying against the soft skin of Villanelle’s chest.

Villanelle has changed so much, Eve reflects. She’s _soft_ now. She _listens_. But then, did she really change, or did Eve just get to know her better? Perhaps this whole time, Villanelle always had the capacity to be ‘good’? And Eve has the capacity to be ‘bad’? _Who even knows anymore?_

Then, Eve is jolted from her thoughts by Villanelle’s stomach growling audibly.

“Uh-oh,” Eve says, sitting up and scooting instinctively to the other end of the couch.

Villanelle is rather unaffected, and only mutters, “Hm.”

“How long has it been?” Eve asks.

Villanelle thinks hard, then says, “Two nights, I think?”

“Should I leave the apartment?”

“No. Stay.” Villanelle pulls Eve close, smells her, kisses her.

Eve’s pulse speeds up; she can’t help it, it’s too similar to one other time when Villanelle was desperately hungry and close to Eve’s neck…

“Don’t be scared,” Villanelle whispers. “I have been practicing for this.”

Eve never liked to hear about Villanelle’s feeding habits; in fact she tried her hardest not to think about them, but now she can’t help herself. “How?”

“At the beginning. When we first became…,” Villanelle pauses, then finds the phrase, “traveling partners. I fed every night. I wanted to make sure I wouldn’t be tempted to snack on you. Or end up so weak and tired I had to resort to…”

Eve shivers. She tries not to think of the faces, the names, the lives of people that were killed so that she would be safe. But Villanelle would be feeding anyway, even if she weren’t with Eve that whole time, so it’s not really Eve’s fault, is it?

“But after a couple of weeks,” Villanelle continues, “I decided, I am stronger than that.”  
  
“A couple of weeks?” Eve goes over the timeline of their travels in her head, and wonders, if Villanelle means what she thinks she means.

“Yes. After _that_ ,” Villanelle says. “So I took a chance. I skipped a meal.”

“And you survived,” Eve comments.

“And _you_ survived,” Villanelle says, splitting into a grin. “So I switched to every other night. Last night should have been a meal night, but I got distracted.”

Villanelle seems keen to return to that similar distraction, nipping at Eve’s neck, just below her earlobe, but she’s interrupted by a knock at the door. “Pizza delivery.”

“Thank God,” Eve says. “I’m almost hungry enough to eat you, too.”

  
As soon as the sun sets, Villanelle disappears to hunt, and Eve makes herself at home in the apartment. She considers taking some time to clean up the mess, but in the end, just shoves the trash to the side as she sits with Villanelle’s laptop and picks at cold pizza. Research time.

First stop, the official Peel Technologies site, which refreshes what little Eve already knew about the brand: big tech company, UK owned, but with their headquarters in Rome, for some reason. 

She pokes around the site, finds the listing for the CEO: Aaron Peel. Must be the son; makes sense if the father had to fake his death and “pass on” the company, since a human remaining CEO for close to a hundred years would surely arouse suspicion.

There are no pictures of Aaron Peel, of course, so Eve opens another tab to find out what the news has to say about him. Supposed genius, but a recluse. That figures.

While she munches her pizza, she fills out the contact form at the bottom of the site and requests an informational tour. Why not?

But Eve knows she won’t learn much about the true nature of the Peels from this website. She pops the last bite of pizza crust into her mouth, zips up her jacket, and leaves to go back home, to check her vampire library.

She’s enjoying the brisk night air, but only makes it a few streets before she spots a familiar figure on a bench. She almost keeps walking, but it’s too late, Konstantin has seen her, too.

“Oh. Uh. Hi,” Eve stammers, as she walks over.

“Hello,” Konstantin replies.

“I figured you’d already be on your way to Carolyn’s.”

“I will go, eventually,” he says. “But I wanted a bit of air. I have been trapped inside for a month.”

“That makes sense,” Eve says, and at a loss, she sits down on the bench next to him. As he shifts to face her, his bite scar peeks out of his shirt. Eve’s hand subconsciously goes up to her own scar, though she doesn’t notice she’s done it until Konstantin is chuckling at her.

“Two of a kind, eh?” he chortles. “Once bitten, twice cursed, that’s an old hunter’s saying.”

“But, you and me, our situations are not exactly the same,” Eve says.

Konstantin raises an eyebrow. “You are not the first human to be in a relationship with a vampire.”

Eve purses her lips. “I don’t know if I’d call it a ‘relationship’…”

“It happens a lot more often than you’d think,” Konstantin sighs. “But it never ends well.”

Eve isn’t sure if she should try to defend whatever it is between her and Villanelle, or just laugh it off. Konstantin just stares off into the trees. Eve finally says, “Tell me honestly. Are you gonna send them after us right away, or give us a little head start?”

“I am very much enjoying the outdoors,” Konstantin says. “I think I may continue enjoying it for a few hours, then go home, see my family for the first time in a year and take a long bath. I do not plan to think about work until tomorrow. Or maybe the next day.”

“Thank you,” Eve murmurs.

“No, thank you,” Konstantin says, with maybe, just maybe, the slightest hint of tears welling in his eyes, but if they are, he holds them back. “Eve, because you were kind to me, I will tell you, she is lying to you.”

“What?”

“Your little warbling, out in the hallway? About how to change humans into vampires?” Konstantin says. “She knows how. Of course she knows, she was there.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Eve says, “She doesn’t remember being turned–”

Konstantin cuts her off with a barking laugh. “Then it was quite a colorful story she made up to tell me!”

Eve’s reeling, it feels like she’s on one of those spinning teacup rides, and she wants to cry out to the operator to stop it. Konstantin rises, groaning as he straightens his knees.

“I am going to go home, and kiss my wife, and hug my daughter,” he says. “Eve Polastri, vampires are exciting. I agree. It’s why I went into this line of work. But it’s wise to remember what really matters in life.”

Eve struggles to stand. Then starts walking. Where should she go? Back home, back to Villanelle’s? But why bother going back to someone who lied to her?

She tries to steady her breathing, tries to fully process what Konstantin told her.

Villanelle lied. Not just once, but constantly, for weeks. The lie began right after they slept together for the first time – to think Eve had found that a tender moment, a charming moment of vulnerability!

The lie continued the more Eve pressed, doubling down, even getting others in on it – Eve now realizes, why Villanelle had been so cagey at Nadia’s appearance… Part of their scheming in Russian must have included the directive, “Hey, don’t tell Eve that I know how to turn her, not even if she asks.”

Then another click as Eve recalls her brief personal chat with Nadia, and her insides begin to boil.

Eve finds her aimless pacing picking up speed, heading for a destination. She’s going back to the apartment. Who cares if it’s dangerous, if she’s heading right back into the clutches of a manipulative bloodsucker – she’s too furious to care. She has to give Villanelle a piece of her mind.

But just as she’s about to turn onto Villanelle’s street, she feels a touch on her arm, and a voice, “Guess who?”

Eve wheels around and throws a wild punch, which somehow actually connects with Villanelle’s jaw.

“Hey! It’s only me!” Villanelle cries, more offended than hurt.

“I _know_ it’s you!” Eve growls, shaking out her right hand. The punch seemed to hurt her more than it hurt Villanelle, which only makes her madder.

“Why are you mad now?” Villanelle asks. ”Who died?”

“You ‘don’t like vampires’,” Eve spits.

“What?”

“Nadia said that’s why you dumped her,” Eve accuses. “And now it all makes sense.”

“Who have you been talking to?” Villanelle asks suspiciously. 

“Did you even think this through? What was your plan for when I figured this out?”

Villanelle bites her lip and widens her eyes, innocent as a lamb. “Honestly, I did not think you would.”

“What if Vlad had been alive?” Eve demands. “What if Nadia had slipped up? Huh?”

“I figured by that point maybe you would’ve given up on your little fantasy.”

“You know it’s not even about the end result. Why didn’t you just tell me the truth?”

“What is ‘the truth’, Eve? You tell me.”

Eve whole body is burning, as she flings the words at Villanelle like rocks. “You want me to stay a human because you want me to be weak. You want me to be a mess. You want me to need you to survive.”

“No.” That’s all Villanelle can say, or all she wants to say.

“You can’t handle the thought of being with someone who gives as good as she gets. Well, you’ll get your wish, now.” Eve says, stepping closer, getting right in Villanelle’s face. “I’m fucking special. I’m fucking smart, and strong, and dangerous, and I’m not gonna take this shit anymore. Have fun dealing with this vampire Mafia on your own.”

Eve begins to storm off, but hears Villanelle calling out to her. “Eve…You’re tired. You haven’t slept in a day. Come to bed, you will feel better after.”

Eve turns her head to shout, “There’s no way–”

But she’s distracted by the sound of her cell phone ringing. _What?_ The noise feels foreign to her, because although she’s kept it on and charged for the convenience of having it as a device, she hasn’t received any calls or texts in weeks, and most notably because she keeps it on Airplane mode when not actively using it. 

It’s on Airplane mode now. And yet it rings. The screen says, “No Caller ID”. Eve frowns, and answers the call.

“Eve Polastri?” asks a cold voice.

“Yes?” Eve says, unsure if it’s her, since her own name sounds unfamiliar to her at the moment. “May I ask who is calling, please?”

“My name is Aaron Peel,” replies the cold voice. “I saw that you’re interested in learning more about my company, and I’d like to offer you a personalized tour. Can you make it to Rome by tomorrow?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it’s called a ‘boot’; I know it’s called a ‘flat’. What can I say? I’m American, and so is Eve, originally. That’s my excuse, and I’m sticking to it.
> 
> anyways...
> 
> please come be my friend on [tumblr](https://imunbreakabledude.tumblr.com/) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/not_breakable) i'm losing my mind xoxoxo


	6. Crusade

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Still rocked by Villanelle's deceit, Eve travels to Rome to meet with Aaron Peel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the delay. I always seem to get blocked on sixth chapters. Don't know why. But now I'm excited to get through to the end.

“Eve.”

Eve stares out the window, trying to find shapes in the clouds.

“Eve.”

Eve unwraps the complimentary earbuds with the airline logo on them, plugs them into her phone, then pops them into her ears.

“Eve!”

Eve hits play on her phone, causing a random music track to come on. Some Polish band Niko had been trying to get her into. She closes her eyes, lets the beat drown out her thoughts. She’s rather growing to like the song when it cuts out, thanks to the earbuds being ripped out of her ears by the whiny, attention-seeking vampire seated next to her.

“Eve.” Villanelle reaches out to gently stroke Eve’s arm. Eve jerks it away from the armrest and tucks it beneath her instead. “Tell me what you are thinking.”

“I’m thinking,” Eve begins, “that if there really is a powerful vampire family in Rome, Stephenie Meyer was right about a few things after all.”

Villanelle looks dumbfounded, with absolutely no idea what to make of this statement. Eve pops her earbuds back in. Let Villanelle struggle with that one for a while.

Eve doesn’t want to be on a flight to Rome right now. In fact, when they were at the airport, she almost asked the clerk for a ticket to Alaska. As if making that purchase would rewind the past twenty-four hours, give her a re-do. Erase Villanelle’s lie. Erase the weird vampiric conspiracy that Eve has somehow gotten wrapped up in.

But now, Aaron Peel knows who she is, and wants to see her personally. Why? Eve has no idea, but she’s guessing he’s not looking to make new human friends. One thing was clear: when one of the most powerful vampires in Europe invites you for a personal tour, you don’t say no. You drop everything, and reluctantly get on a plane with your infuriating maybe-girlfriend, because you need some supernatural backup, and you can always stake her later.

Villanelle clears her throat. Eve turns up the volume of her music until she can’t hear her own thoughts anymore, let alone any sound from her seatmate. She focuses in on the rippling guitar pattern in the song, until the music cuts out abruptly for a second time.

She looks down to see her headphones still plugged into the jack, but the wire is severed after a few inches. Villanelle tore it in two.

“Let’s talk about what happened right before we got on this plane,” Villanelle says, matter-of-factly.

“No,” Eve says.

“Please cooperate,” Villanelle says, with gritted teeth, and an incredible force of effort. “I’m doing this for your benefit. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, Eve, it’s that you always want to talk-talk-talk even when you pretend everything’s fine.”

“There’s nothing left to say.” 

“You never listened to what I had to say in the first place.”

“Sorry I didn’t give you the chance to come up with a new lie,” Eve spits.

“I’m not–”

“Shhh!” A red-faced man with thinning hair sat in front of them turns around, peering over the seat. “You’re not the only ones on this plane, eh? Some of us are trying to rest.”

There are some perks to nighttime flights, after all. Villanelle’s eyes burn, and for a minute, Eve worries that she might bend forward and bite the man’s head off, literally. But she folds her arms and stews silently. 

Incredibly satisfied, Eve lies back against her seat. She hasn’t slept in over twenty-four hours, and tomorrow is sure to be a busy day, with whatever Aaron Peel has in store for her. Maybe she’s walking to meet certain death, or maybe she’s about to singlehandedly topple the greatest vampire dynasty in Europe. Either way, it’ll be nice to rest her eyes for just a few minutes or so…

  
Eve awakens to the _whump_ of her body hitting a soft mattress. Something about waking up as she falls into a bed feels awfully backwards, and she’s convinced she’s dreaming for a moment. 

With great effort, she lifts her head and looks around. As her eyes adjust to the darkness, she notes she’s lying on a full-size bed in a smallish, but nicely furnished hotel room. And there, standing in the corner, in the shadows, is Villanelle.

“Jesus!” Eve screams. “Why are you lurking in the dark like that?”

“A ‘thank you’ would be nice,” Villanelle says. “I carried you all the way from the plane so you wouldn’t have to wake up.”

Eve pictures Villanelle lugging her unconscious body through the airport, in a cab, up to the hotel check-in counter. She wants badly to ask how no one questioned that sight, but that’s too much for her exhausted brain to deal with.

“Go back to bed,” Villanelle says. “You need the sleep.”

Turning herself over, Eve peels back the comforter and tucks herself into bed. Warm. Soft. Dark. Might as well be heaven right now… and yet, as much as Eve’s bones ache with fatigue, her brain buzzes, very much awake.

She shifts, and squints in the darkness to see Villanelle seated on the floor, back against the wall, staring at the carpet like a child in time-out.

“Come on,” Eve sighs, and smacks the pillow next to her. “Get into bed.”

Even in the dim light, Villanelle’s eyes seem to glint with new light, as she bolts up and slides underneath the covers next to Eve faster than any human could move.

“Can’t sleep,” Eve says.

Villanelle rolls onto her side, facing Eve. “Scared for tomorrow?”

“Yes,” Eve murmurs.

“Do you want a bedtime story?”

Eve nods.

“Once upon a time, in Russia,” Villanelle says. She’s so close, Eve can feel her cool breath as she speaks. “There was a girl called Oksana.”

A shiver of anticipation runs down Eve’s spine. She imagines how many times Villanelle has told this story before, to Konstantin. How many times she’s practiced the words. She squirms in the bed, making herself comfortable, so she can focus perfectly.

Villanelle goes on. “She was in prison, and she was very sad. She knew she didn’t belong there.”

“She was innocent?” Eve laughs. “There was a mistake? She was framed?”

“No, she totally killed a man,” Villanelle says. “And didn’t feel bad about it. But she still didn’t belong there. She knew in her heart, that she deserved to roam free. Right down here.” Underneath the blanket, Villanelle’s hand reaches out and pokes Eve just above her belly button.

“In her diaphragm?”

“That’s where your soul is,” Villanelle says, with such conviction that Eve believes her. “She knew, in her soul that she would be free one day. She didn’t know when, but it was coming. Still, every day she had to wait was agony. One day exactly like the next. Make some trouble, get in solitary, just for some variation. But being trapped was killing her. Her soul started to shrivel.”

With this, Villanelle pinches the flesh of Eve’s stomach between her fingers. It tickles.

“One night,” Villanelle continues. “A man came. He told Oksana he had a bit of magic, and he would share it with her, to set her free.”

Eve’s eyelids are beginning to grow heavy, but she’s still lucid enough to note and appreciate the way Villanelle subtly glosses over Nadia’s role in the story. It’s considerate, in Villanelle’s way.

“The man, it turned out, was not a man at all,” Villanelle says. “He was something more. And he told Oksana, if she came back the next night, he would make her more, too. So she spent one more day, with all the other ordinary humans in the prison. She looked at them all for the last time with her human eyes. Then, that night she met the not-man again.”

Eve can feel her eyelids beginning to flutter. Drowsiness is creeping up, but she still hangs intently on every word.

“He took a small knife, and made a cut on her arm.” With this, Villanelle lifts her arm up above the covers, and points to the tiny white line inside her elbow. “He said, ‘I could use my teeth, but the fashion is to be more discreet these days.’ And he laughed. Oksana didn’t get why it was funny, then. He put his mouth on the cut, and he drank. He drank and drank. Oksana felt her life draining away. Felt her soul getting smaller. Most people would have been scared. Most people would’ve pulled away. But she let him drink. Right when she felt like her soul was about to shrink down to nothing, he stopped.”

Eve fights off her drowsiness. She can’t fall asleep now; she _can’t_ , not at the most important part. She digs her fingernails into her opposite arm to keep herself awake.

“Then, with his mouth dripping with her blood, he took the knife again. He pressed it into his own arm, and cut it open in the same fashion. Then, he offered it to her, and told her to drink.”

Eve’s heart picks up, and she’s suddenly very awake. This isn’t like any version of the myth she’s heard before.

“She could barely move her lips, but she put them to his arm, and she drank. And as the vampire’s blood entered her body, the change began. She had to keep drinking, quite a lot. The more she took, the more she could feel the change. The vampire blood began to fill her up. To push out every bit that used to be human. To burn each cell and and create it anew. Everything was dark, and heat, and the taste of blood. She did not even realize when her heart stopped beating. She did not realize when she stopped breathing. She did not realize she still existed. Until the burn faded, and she opened her eyes, and she was free.”

Eve can’t feel her own breathing anymore. It’s slowed to the deep, almost imperceptible breathing of sleep.

“Eve,” she thinks she hears Villanelle’s voice again, or is she dreaming it now. “You are right. I should have told you sooner.”

It must be a dream. Villanelle would never say that.

  
When Eve wakes, there’s sunlight streaming around the sides of the heavy curtains. She rolls over to find the other side of the bed empty. 

She stumbles into the tiny bathroom, rummages into her well-overworked duffel bag for her toothbrush, then finally notices the note written in choppy yet elegant script, stuck to the mirror.

_Went out for a bite. Might not be back by morning. I will see you again after sundown. Do not do anything stupid. Remember Aaron is a vampire. Don’t be brave. If you see anything scary, run into the sunlight._

Eve clutches the note tightly. It’s not only Villanelle’s concern that makes her feel warm inside; it’s the fact that Villanelle trusts her to go alone. 

Eve may be only a human, but she is capable. She is about to go face off against a figure that inspires fear in literal demons, as well as plenty of human financiers and tech gurus.

A shower is probably in order, first.

  
The international headquarters of Peel Technologies makes an impressive façade from the front, with its tall entrance wall made almost entirely of glass. Eve can’t help but swivel her head about as she walks into the foyer, and looks up to the open second and third floors to see legions of young elite at standing desks, or bouncing on stability balls, or walking and talking as they weave throughout the open floor plan.

She’s hardly taken three steps inside before an intern with a clipboard and an earpiece is upon her. “Who are you and who are you meeting?”

“Eve Polastri. I’m here to see Aaron Peel.”

The intern furrows his brow, then presses a button on his earpiece and murmurs a rapid series of questions in Italian. He listens intently to some response from the other end. Then, he reaches into his fanny pack and produces a laminated badge, which he hands to Eve. “Follow me,” he commands. 

Eve follows the intern up a set of riserless stairs. He bounces like a rabbit when he walks. Eve almost expects to see a cotton tail poke out of his jeans. Eventually, after a few rapid corner turns, he leads her to a pseudo-conference room, which is really just a few modern couches arranged in a rough ring, with some potted plants as well, and not a real wall in sight.

“Mr. Peel will be with you shortly.”

Eve sits. She crosses then uncrosses her legs. She looks around some more, but there’s nothing out of the ordinary, other than the mini-fridges stocked with smoothies and kombucha everywhere. Just a bunch of young techie humans going about their work. Absolutely nothing indicates that this business is secretly owned by vampires.

Then, Eve senses a presence and looks up to find a man looming above her. He had approached more silently than anyone else Eve has ever met, except Villanelle. He looks down at Eve with cold, analytical eyes. “Ms. Polastri, I presume?”

“Yes.”

“Aaron Peel,” he says, ignoring Eve’s offered handshake. “I’m glad we could meet so promptly.”

He sits down on the couch opposite Eve and crosses his legs. Everything about him is stiff and sharp angles. His dark hair is combed so neatly it looks like it’s set in cement, and his classes are perfectly round and polished. 

Eve tries her hardest not to let out a laugh. Of course Aaron Peel wouldn’t come meet her himself. The crown prince of the vampire ruling class wouldn’t take time out of his day to meet with lowly Eve. And it makes perfect sense that he’d have a stand-in to act as his proxy to do business during the day. To stand in this office that’s all windows, basking in the sunlight. Although, Eve notes, whoever this proxy really is, he’s still remarkably pale.

But Eve smiles, able to relax a bit, knowing she’s speaking to a fellow human, at least, and if Peel does want her dead for some reason, he’s at least playing it slowly. 

“Impressive headquarters,” Eve comments.

“I detest everything about it,” says “Aaron”. “But it’s the only way to get the young things working.”

“Business is booming, huh?” Eve says. “I read that your stock hit an all-time high this month.”

“I admire the valiant attempt at normalcy,” Aaron says. “But I detest small talk even more than I detest this office design. Tell me, Eve Polastri,” he cocks his head to the side ever so slightly. “Do you believe in vampires?”

“I believe,” Eve begins, tentatively. “I believe that you work for them.”

Aaron smirks. It shouldn’t be surprising that someone who works for a vampire empire would be a bit cold and condescending; maybe the demons have rubbed off on him. Although, Eve assumes that this man is Aaron’s thrall, and she wonders how much free reign Aaron Peel might offer to his proxy. Perhaps his words and reactions have been dictated down to the letter, even stricter than the orders that Villanelle used to give Konstantin. In which case, Eve is essentially talking to the vampire himself, but without being in immediate danger of being eaten. Kind of a best-case scenario.

“You like poking your nose in places it doesn’t belong, don’t you?” he says.

Eve isn’t sure what answer is correct, so she says nothing.

“Lucky for you, I have a need for someone nosy at the moment,” he continues. “Something’s been bothering me, and I think you have the answer I seek.”

“What is it?” Eve says. Her mouth suddenly feels very dry, and she wishes she could go grab one of those bottles of kombucha from the nearest mini-fridge. 

“Between thirty-six and forty-eight hours ago, my top assassin was dispatched,” Aaron says. Eve is shocked at how casually he throws that word around, and in an open office – does every one of these employees know the true nature of their CEO already? Are they all knowingly working on other parts of whatever aggressive plot the Peels are planning, helping him track down lone vampires to recruit or kill?

“She failed to meet one of her regular check-ins with me. According to her last report, she was on her way to a target, one Vladimir Mikhailov, last known to be residing in Bristol. I was able to confirm that she did eliminate Vladimir, but then met an unfortunate end herself. And wouldn’t you know, our subsequent investigation into who may have killed her turned up one oddity.”

He pauses, clearly enjoying himself. Eve realizes he won’t go on until she responds, so she says, “What is that?”

“We checked the footage from the security cameras at the school where Vladimir was working, and living, unbeknownst to the humans, of course. On one camera, we discovered brief footage of a human woman entering the school just before the altercation. Further search and facial recognition identified the most likely candidate as a former employee of MI5.” Aaron is fully grinning now, a sharklike smile. “You can imagine my surprise and delight when not twelve hours later, Eve Polastri herself reaches out to contact me.”

Eve tries to swallow the dry lump in her throat, but it does not go away.

“So, Eve Polastri, please enlighten me.” Aaron leans forward. “Who killed the Ghost?”

Eve has a dreadful feeling she’s already ensnared in a trap, and struggling will only tangle her up more. In absence of a better idea, she decides to be honest. “I did. I killed her.”

Despite her effort to put on a brave face, her panic must be evident, because Aaron chuckles. “There’s no need to worry,” Aaron says. “I seek no retribution for the loss of my tool, and, more importantly to your interest, I could not possibly care less about your fate. What I want to know is: who helped you?”

Eve freezes up.

“I looked into you, Eve,” Aaron continues. “I saw on your resume a very brief time with those roleplaying hooligans, the Silver League. A mere few weeks with them, not that it would matter, as even centuries of whatever they could teach you would not be enough for you to defeat a vampire of such skill on your own. I’ll ask once more: who is the vampire who did the real heavy lifting?”

Eve’s brain reels. She has no plan for this scenario. 

“By all means take your time,” Aaron says, leaning back to sit ramrod straight again. “I can wait. But I encourage you to tell the truth. One name, and I’ll let you go on your merry way, to play hunter again, or run for safety and try to forget vampires even exist. Again, I do not care what you do, so long as you give me my answer. If you resist, however” he adds, “I may have to grow more persuasive.”

There’s no getting out of this without giving him a name. With the natural and supernatural resources of the Peel empire, he surely knows more than he’s letting on. She has to give him something…

“There was a vampire, who did most of the fighting, yes,” Eve says.

“Good.” Aaron says. “Who?”

“She’s Russian,” Eve says. “Pretty. Looks about twenty-five or so, though of course I don’t know how long she’s really been around.”

“Name?”

Eve inhales and tries her hardest to steady her nerves. “Nadia,” she says. “She called herself Nadia. That’s all I know. She ran off after the assassin was dead.”

Aaron stares at her, like his glasses give him x-ray vision and he’s very interested in the shape of Eve’s skull. The next few seconds are painfully long, until finally, Aaron says, “Thank you for your cooperation.”

Then, the same intern from before appears instantly, and leads Eve back to the entrance. He gives her a bottle of water and a Peel Technologies logo sticker, and bids her a good afternoon.

  
Eve spends the rest of the day pacing the tiny hotel room like a madwoman. It didn’t take her long to tear through the lunch and junk food she bought on her way back; the stress made her ravenous. She keeps peering out the window, willing the sun to sink faster.

When the light finally fades, and the door opens, Eve almost screams from the relief and throws herself into Villanelle’s arms.

“What a nice reception,” Villanelle mumbles. “I could get used to this.”

Eve immediately fills Villanelle in on her meeting with “Aaron”, the words pouring out of her like a waterfall. Frustratingly, Villanelle does not share Eve’s panic, and instead reacts with delight.

“They’re after _me_?” she says. “Finally, someone takes notice!”

“This is bad!” Eve snaps. “Really bad. Before, we just had to worry about him accidentally tracking us down, now we know he’s not only after you, you’re his top priority right now.”

“Cool,” Villanelle grins.

“He’s going to figure out I lied at some point,” Eve says. “If not right away, then after he sends more goons to catch up to Nadia and they realize it wasn’t her.”

“I thought you would be happy, Eve,” Villanelle says. “Now we’re both in the same boat, and there’s no question. We get to do your plan after all.” Villanelle grins and pokes Eve in the belly. “Take them down from the top.”

“But how can we do that?” Eve realizes how foolish she sounds, when only yesterday she was the one massively underestimating the threat of the Peel dynasty, but after seeing how intimidating the human thrall was, she’s not keen to provoke the actual vampires any more than she already has. “If this guy is so secretive he sent a human in his place to meet me, it’s gonna be crazy hard to get close to him.”

“No problem,” Villanelle says. “While you were sleeping last night, I met his sister.”

Eve’s jaw drops.

“Don’t be mad, okay?” Villanelle squeezes Eve on the arm. “I have a date with her tomorrow.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it’s “ground floor” and then “first floor” in Europe. But even if it wasn’t from Eve’s American-raised point of view, I think that terminology is BONKERS and I’ll never use it even when it’s accurate. The first floor is so called because it’s the FIRST FLOOR you walk into! I don’t know why I’m so angry about this at this moment, but clearly I’ve had some pent up issues about this which are just coming out now!
> 
> wow okay anyways
> 
> lemme know what you think or come say hi on [tumblr](https://imunbreakabledude.tumblr.com/) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/not_breakable)


	7. Combatants

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Villanelle begins seducing Amber Peel in order to get information on Aaron. Eve grows restless and frustrated watching from the sidelines.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry it took a while; got a little distracted by a certain two women doing a certain something on a certain bus.

“You’re the sexiest.”

“No, you.”

Okay, maybe those aren’t the exact words being said, but Eve is only half-listening while she munches popcorn and watches some Italian soap opera on mute in the hotel room. Her cell phone sits next to her on the bed, playing Villanelle and Amber’s conversation on speaker, but so far, it’s not much worth hearing. Eve wishes she could scream into the phone to remind Villanelle she’s supposed to be gathering information about Aaron, not trying to get into his sister’s pants.

She’d prefer a video feed, but that isn’t possible for obvious reasons, so they’ve stuck with the simple one-way cell-phone plan. Eve had worried at first that it would be very easy for Amber to discover, but Villanelle laughed it off, assuring Eve that the target of her seduction was not the brightest bulb.

“You’re stunning,” Villanelle says, in the droll American accent she’d concocted to disguise her true identity from Amber. (Though Amber wouldn’t recognize Villanelle, it seemed wise to adopt a different nationality while the Peel estate was busy searching for a young Russian vampire). “I mean it. Absolutely smoking. It’s rare to find one of our kind who actually takes care of herself.”

“Of course,” Amber giggles. “It’s embarrassing how some of us carry ourselves. Luckily, some of Aaron’s gadgets make it a lot easier.”

“Aaron’s gadgets,” Villanelle repeats. “So he’s the enterprising one?” A beat. “No offense or anything.”

“None taken,” Amber giggles. “He is. Aaron really wants to flex on all of Europe. Wants to prove he’s bigger and badder than Daddy, I think. That’s why he killed him.”

Eve looks down at the phone, as if that will help confirm if she heard correctly.

“Killed him?” Villanelle asks, confirming Eve’s doubt.

“Shoot, I forgot I’m not supposed to tell that part,” Amber says. “You won’t go telling anyone, will you? I don’t need it getting back to Aaron. He tends to overreact to these things.”

“Totally. My lips are sealed,” Villanelle says. “Kinda reeling, though, like, that’s some juicy gossip?”

“Somehow he’s got it in his head, that he needs to unite all the vampires in Europe underneath his helm. Or kill them. Personally, as long as we’ve got the resources to live comfortably, I don’t give a shit.”

“It’s comfortable up at the top, huh?”

“The kind of influence our name carries can get anything we’d ever want,” Amber says. “Fashion, furniture, food… the best of all.”

“Where do I sign up?”

Amber laughs again. Every time Eve hears her high picked giggle, she gets an irrational urge to grab the pillow from the head of the bed and rip it apart with her bare hands.

“There’s not as much to envy as you think,” Amber says. “Sure, I can have anything brought here to me, but having to stay here in Rome, like a figurehead, for the sake of keeping the power associated with our names?” Amber sighs. “I should envy _you_. Still so young. Running around from America to Europe, doing whatever you like.”

“That’s charitable of you,” Villanelle says.

“I’m serious,” Amber says. “After a hundred years, you really start to miss things, you know? There’s just so much time to fill. You watch generations grow up, then die. You watch revolutions, political and technical and artistic and all sorts. And sometimes you get wistful, yeah? ‘Was it meant to be this way? Is this all wrong? Was I supposed to age and die fifty years ago?’”

“Hold on,” Villanelle says. “You’re telling me you wanna die?”

“Oh gosh, no!” Amber says. “Just for moments, the mind goes there. But then I go take a nice steam in the sauna and have another glass of warm blood, and I’m quite chuffed where I am.”

Amber laughs again. Eve grabs the pillow and digs her fingers into it.

Soon, the conversation shifts back into flirting. Amber asks Villanelle about her travels, and Eve tunes them out. The soap opera has ended, taken over by late-night infomercials, so Eve turns off the TV and begins playing on her phone while the call continues in the background.

Her thumb takes her into her camera roll. Eve can’t remember the last time she took a photo, but the gallery that fills her phone screen brings back a flood of memories.

Bill’s corpse. The mark of Villanelle’s teeth on his neck.

The name placard on Eve’s desk from MI5. The photo Villanelle took before killing Bill.

Half a dozen pictures of an empty chair at a café table in a museum in London. No one else but Eve would know they’re actually pictures of Villanelle, from their very first encounter.

Further in the archive, dozens of photos of Eve and Niko. From her _before-life_. Before she knew, _really_ knew, that vampires were real. Before she was bitten by one. Before she fell for one.

These photos with Niko are all that remain of all the years she spent with him. Of the love they shared, and the fights they had. Eighteen years of compromises.

She still makes compromises, of a different sort. But one keen difference between her deceased marriage and her present whatever-this-is, is that there are not, nor will there ever be, any photos of Eve and Villanelle. There will never be any tangible evidence of their time together, other than the scar etched into Eve’s skin.

  
Just before dawn, as Eve’s eyes are glazed over watching some Italian shopping channel, the door opens and Villanelle appears.

“Morning,” she greets Eve.

Eve grunts, eyes still glued to the screen. Villanelle climbs onto the bed, and hits the end call button on Eve’s phone, which still lies untouched. Then, she picks up the remote, and turns off the TV. 

“Tired from your strenuous night of listening, huh?” Villanelle asks.

“Fuck off,” Eve grumbles.

“You’re really cranky.” Villanelle begins undoing her blouse as she talks. “Skip to the part where you tell me what I did wrong, so I can skip to the part where I kiss you and make it better.”

Eve knows her crankiness is exacerbated by sitting in a dark room all night eating junk food and staring at a screen. She could apologize and curl up in bed and forget about it. But that wouldn’t change what’s really bothering her.

“I don’t think this plan is working.”

“What are you talking about?” Villanelle says, now shuffling out of her jeans, and climbing underneath the covers. “Did you not hear the part where Amber said that Aaron killed their dad and he wants to take over the whole vampire world now? I can’t believe their little ‘empire’ has lasted a hundred years with her flapping her gums like that. Loose lips sink ships.”

“But it’s never going to actually get us closer to Aaron,” Eve says.

Villanelle leans close to Eve. “Rome wasn’t built in a day.”

“We don’t have time to waste for you to flirt your way into a family dinner,” Eve says. “Any day now, Aaron’s scouts will track down Nadia. Maybe they already have. And then they’ll be after you, and me, for lying to them.”

Villanelle stares at Eve wearily. “How many more back-and-forths before you admit it, Eve?”

“Admit what?”

“You’re jealous.”

“Ha!” Eve belts out. “Jealous. Good one.”

Eve thought it sounded very convincing. But Villanelle cocks an eyebrow, unimpressed.

“You hear everything I say to her,” Villanelle drawls. “What more do you want?”

“I want to see.”

Villanelle rolls her eyes. “Put a camera on me if you want. It won’t do much good.”

“That’s not what I was going to suggest,” Eve says.

“No,” Villanelle says. “Whatever you are thinking, the answer is no.”

“Why not?”

“First off, because I am not going to bring my squishy human close to a century-old vampire even if she does seem like a complete dolt,” Villanelle says. “I have enough respect for my elders not to underestimate her.”

“Just admit the real reason,” Eve says. “Because you’re doing things I wouldn’t like to see.”

Villanelle darkens. “I have to do those things, to get us to Aaron, and save our asses.”

Eve folds her arms, trying to come up with an adequate rebuttal.

“Don’t worry,” Villanelle says, reaching out to caress Eve’s cheek. “I am not with her, when I am with her.”

In spite of herself, Eve’s heart flutters. Even more than she hates her heart for its betrayal, she hates the fact that Villanelle can hear it. Villanelle gives a self-satisfied smirk and rubs the spot next to her, beckoning for Eve to join.

Eve really hates that vampire, sometimes.

And she hates even more that she can’t find the strength to leave her.

Soft beams of light creep in at the edges of the curtain as Eve buries herself in the blankets and wraps herself around Villanelle.

“Even though I hate her,” Eve murmurs. “I kinda feel bad for Amber.”

“Why?” Villanelle says. It’s soft, but Eve can feel the vibrations of her speech through her back.

“Well, she, and Aaron too, I guess – neither of them really had a choice. If their dad made them into vampires… Amber sounded a little sad about it.”

“Eve,” Villanelle squirms and turns around, now face to face with Eve. “No one ever became a vampire against their will. The turning process requires action from both parties. Amber and Aaron made the choice to drink.”

“Not much of a choice when the alternative is _bleed to death_.”

“You would be surprised at how many humans choose that option,” Villanelle says. A hint of sadness in her voice. 

“It still doesn’t seem fair.”

Villanelle reaches out to tap Eve on the nose with her index finger. “Where is your _rah-rah-I-wanna-be-a-vampire_ spirit now?”

“It was just… different to hear from someone who’s that old. She brought up some good points…” Eve trails off.

“Does that mean I get to keep my lovely, soft, Eve?” Villanelle pokes Eve in the belly, as she loves to do.

“Does that mean you’d turn me if I asked you?” Eve fires back.

“Are you asking me to?”

Eve can practically feel the sparks as they stare each other down, heads on pillows, but as electric as if they’re on a battlefield.

“No,” Eve says. “I’m thinking. That’s all.”

She thinks until sleep takes over her. Thinks not only about becoming a vampire, but being one. A day. A week. A year. A century…

A larger commitment than any Eve has ever made. A longer term promise than her marriage vows, with no take-backs. What would it mean, to divorce herself from her humanity? To say “I do” to immortality.

It’s unclear at what point her overthinking turns into dreaming, but before she knows it, she’s walking down the aisle to the altar, in her wedding dress, but instead of Niko waiting for her, it’s her. It’s Eve, in a tuxedo, deathly pale, except for the bright red bite on the side of her neck, dribbling a stream of blood down onto her boutonniere. Then her other self vanishes, an empty suit. A voice booms from all around her. Villanelle’s voice. _Do you, Eve Polastri, take undeath? To have and to hold; in night and only in night because there’s no day ever again; in boredom and in sin, for ever and ever and ever?_

When she wakes, she feels sick, but she can’t remember why. The dream is forgotten by the time she’s dressed.

Villanelle is already off on her next date with Amber. She left Eve’s phone, already on a one-way call with hers, open on the table, on top of a note that says: _Sorry, baby. Can’t wait to come home to you._

Eve’s blood boils. Time to go ahead with her plan, after all.

While she dresses, she listens to the conversation. It sounds like Villanelle has just arrived to meet Amber.

“So… this is not where your brother lives?”

“Yeah, I like to get out of the Palazzo sometimes because Aaron can be a lot to live with, if you know what I mean, even in such a big place. So this is my own little pad. What do you think?”

The sound of footsteps, as Villanelle pokes around and assess the apartment. “High ceilings.” Another pause, the sound of running water. “Good water pressure.”

Eve grabs the bottle of perfume from the dresser, tucks her stake in her waistband, and picks up her phone to end the call. She won’t need to hear, soon, and then, she opens Find My Friends.

Time to crash Villanelle’s little date.

She follows the blinking dot showing Villanelle’s phone’s location, following the map a few streets away until it brings her to an impressive stone-front house with a huge wooden double door. If this is Amber’s idea of a “little pad”, she can’t even imagine how big the Peel family home must be.

She tries the door, and it opens easily. Apparently leaving homes unlocked is a trend among vampires.

Eve ascends a short flight of stairs, then finds herself in a spacious living room-dining room area that somehow feels bright and airy despite the darkness. Villanelle wasn’t kidding about the high ceilings.

Villanelle is seated at a small dining table, only large enough for two, opposite the woman that Eve presumes to be Amber. Knowing Amber’s true age, Eve was partly expecting to see a classic gothic vision, in a corset and all that getup, but Amber is merely clad in an oversized sweater, and with her light brown hair falling to her shoulders in limp waves, looks like she could be a young woman off plucked off the streets of London today, rather than a century-old creature. Both vampires look up at the sound of Eve’s entrance. 

“Hello, master,” Eve says, cheerfully.

Villanelle is dumbstruck. It takes all of Eve’s self-control not to squeal with delight, since it’s not often she gets to pull one over on the vampire like this.

Amber doesn’t bat an eye. Eve perfectly looks the part of a vampire’s human slave, of course, with the plainly visible bite mark on her neck. Her being a thrall is, in fact, much more believable than the truth of whatever the hell her and Villanelle’s relationship is.

“I brought you that perfume you wanted.” She strolls over to the table and hands Villanelle the tiny glass bottle. It’s a weak excuse, especially since Amber can surely tell that Villanelle’s already wearing the perfume, but hopefully Villanelle’s high-maintenance personality will sell the idea that she might care to reapply midway through the night.

For her part, Amber doesn’t question it, only smiles coyly while Villanelle stands and squirts a mist of the perfume onto her, then hands it back to Eve, shooting daggers with her eyes all the while.

“You may go, now,” Villanelle says, icily. 

“Wait,” Amber says. “It might be nice, actually, to have a server.”

Villanelle’s eyes dart over to Amber, then back to Eve. Considering carefully. “Yes,” she says slowly. “That would be nice.”

Villanelle returns to her seat opposite Amber at the tiny table. “Thrall,” she says. “Come light these candles for us.”

If getting a front row seat to their conversation means Eve has to perform a few menial tasks, she can handle that. She picks up a matchbook from a side table. It takes a few tries to strike the match, and she has to steady herself, strangely nervous by the minor task with two vampires watching her. Finally, the spark catches, and she’s able to light the candles on the table, and spread across the apartment. Nearly a dozen in all, and once they’re lit, it’s obvious why Amber chose them – each and every candle is scented. They fragrances are an eclectic mix: some floral, some foody, and Eve supposes the nuances of the melange must be lost on her human nose.

Villanelle inhales deeply and sighs. “You are an artist.”

“Thanks,” Amber says, and probably would be blushing, if she were able. “Had to bring out my best for tonight, to complement the meal.”

“It’s working wonders,” Villanelle says. “I’m starving.” She turns her head to Eve, sparkling with mischief. “Thrall. Go get our meal and serve it to us.”

“The meal?” Eve repeats.

“In the pantry,” Amber says. “That-a-way.” She points down a short hallway.

Eve shuffles in the direction Amber pointed until she comes to a small room that branches off. She pokes her head inside, and has to bite on her fist to stop herself from crying out at the sight of the “meal” Amber had prepared.

A rather thickly built bald man is laid out on a table, like a cadaver on a slab. He’s been stripped completely nude, and mouth is gagged. As Eve draws closer, she notes the extremely shallow movement of his chest; he’s still alive, though deeply unconscious. Of course, she tells herself, Amber wouldn’t serve her guest a stale, dead body. But it presents an interesting dilemma, which knots itself deep in Eve’s stomach: if she delivers this man to the hungry vampires down the hall, she is delivering him to death.

She squashes her squeamishness down with her years of expert repression. This man is as good as dead already, and it’s not like Eve refusing to bring him out will save him; it would only mean that the vampires would come get him themselves, and probably kill Eve, too. Her real dilemma is how to move this man who looks to weigh almost twice as much as Eve the ten-odd meters down the hallway to the hungry diners.

Eve nudges the man’s body with her elbow just to test the resistance, and almost yelps when he shifts slightly at her touch. With a rush of relief, she notices that the table he’s on is actually a cart with wheels. She grabs the edge of the cart, and maneuvers it out the door, and all the way over to the dining area.

“AB negative,” Amber says, proudly. “They’re getting harder to find these days, but still my favorite.”

“You have expensive tastes,” Villanelle says.

“I have high standards, so I’m pretty hard to satisfy,” Amber says.

“I can relate.”

Eve slowly retreats, gravitating towards the wall, for some reason – maybe it will offer her some security, to be next to something solid – but Villanelle says, “Stay right there. I might need you again.”

Eve stops. She knows Villanelle is trying to get under her skin, to punish Eve for showing up unannounced. Eve has to admit she did walk right into this predicament, but still grinds her teeth silently, trying to keep her composure.

She knows about Villanelle’s eating habits. Of course she does. It’s been the topic of plenty of their arguments, and a large portion of Eve’s waking and sleeping thoughts. It’d be a lie to say she’d made her peace with it, but she’d at least reached a kind of tolerance, an acceptance of “that’s the way it is”, so long as she didn’t have to see or hear about it more than absolutely necessary. In fact, Eve has thus far managed to avoid seeing Villanelle feed at all, unless she counts the time that Villanelle fed from Eve herself in the tunnel.

“Well, as they say here in Rome,” Amber says. “ _Buon appetito._ ”

Two wet crunches, one after another, as Amber and Villanelle each sink their teeth into one of the man’s meaty thighs. Then, only loud slurping, a sound which is disturbingly familiar to Eve. Eve chews the inside of her cheek to bits, and stares at the ceiling. 

A few noisy minutes later, the body on the slab is dotted with bite marks in various places, and has officially passed into corpse territory. Eve is glad for the scented candles, now, and focuses as much as she can on those scents, to ignore the carcass before her. The vampires, meanwhile, seem extremely satisfied with their meal.

Villanelle leans forward across the table. “You have a little…” Her finger extends to wipe a smear of blood from Amber’s lip. Then, it pops into Amber’s mouth, and Amber licks it clean.

Eve thinks she might vomit.

The “might” turns into an “almost certainly”, when Amber leans over the table and kisses Villanelle.

Kisses her.

Amber’s lips on Villanelle’s lips.

And Villanelle kisses back. Pulls her close. Leans into it, for one second, two, before pulling away.

“Something to take care of, first,” Villanelle mumbles, and shoots a glance towards Eve.

“Oh, I don’t mind,” Amber says nonchalantly. “I’ve done plenty worse in front of thralls before. I don’t even notice them, now.”

Villanelle smirks. “I don’t think my thrall and I have that kind of relationship.”

Amber smiles pitifully. “You’re so adorable. I almost forgot you’re such a baby. This is probably like, your first one, isn’t it?” she says, indicating Eve.

“Second,” Villanelle says.

“After you’ve been through couple hundred, you won’t care anymore. Unless you’re Aaron. He can’t stand to keep one around. I keep telling him how helpful it is, but he’s too paranoid.”

Eve’s nausea ceases, momentarily supplanted by confusion. If Aaron has no thrall, then who did she speak to in the office the other day?

Amber continues trying to soothe Villanelle. “There’s really no reason to care. It’s not like she can go tell anyone about this.” Amber continues her advance.

Eve is paralyzed between restlessness and indecision. Can she slip out? No – without Villanelle’s order, it would immediately arouse Amber’s suspicion.

Villanelle catches her eye. Only for a split second, but Eve perfectly understands what the glance means.

_I’m sorry. Well, sorry-ish. But also, I told you so. And I’m doing this anyway._

As Villanelle leads Amber over to the couch, Eve’s heart begins to pick up. Her right hand takes on a mind of its own, and reaches to the small of her back, gripping her stake.

Fortunately, the vampires are too fixated on each other to note Eve’s approach. Villanelle lays flat on the couch while Amber straddles her. Eve creeps close, while Amber dips down, bringing her lips close to Villanelle’s once again…

With all of the fury she’s repressed for her entire life, Eve swings her stake at Amber’s back.

She shocks herself with her aim. Just a little to the left of her spine… Extra force to get it all the way through to the heart… She didn’t expect to get it in one, but like that, Amber is dust.

Villanelle stares up at Eve. Eyes wide. Eve pants, suddenly overwhelmed with the reality of what she’s done.

“Why did you do that?” Villanelle demands, coughing as she chokes on a bit of dust.

“I don’t know, I don’t know!” Eve replies.

“I could’ve gotten something out of her–”

“We’ll find another way,” Eve says.

“We could have used her as a bargaining chip. Having a hostage would’ve earned us some protection–” Villanelle stops, as a new thought occurs to her. “If Aaron wasn’t going to kill you before, he will definitely will now.”

Eve says, “I’m sorry, okay? I wasn’t thinking.”

“Obviously.”

“Something just… came over me,” Eve says. “I just couldn’t watch her with the person I lo–”

 _Whoosh. Pwip._ A silver dart with a feathered plume sprouts out of Villanelle’s neck, and her eyes roll back as she topples to the floor. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry-ish for the cliffhanger! final chapter is already mostly done though. coming on friday!
> 
> What do you think?
> 
> come chat / fail about season 3 with me on [tumblr](https://imunbreakabledude.tumblr.com/) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/not_breakable) xo


	8. Choices

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eve and Villanelle are captured by Aaron Peel, and each faces a difficult choice in order to survive.

Eve whirls around to face the two goons who have appeared in the doorway of Amber’s apartment. Both hold small, long-nosed silver guns, though one is lowering his already; the other has his trained on Eve.

“Don’t shoot, Reg,” the thug with the lowered gun says. “That one’s a human.”

“She’s armed, Danny,” Reg growls, keeping aim on Eve.

“Not gonna hurt us with that little splinter,” Danny sighs. “Besides, these darts are made to put vampires to sleep. They have enough sedative in them to take down a herd of African Elephants. They’d stop her heart, and I think Mr. Peel would much prefer if we brought her back alive.”

For a millisecond, Eve contemplates running, but soon realizes it’s futile, since she has no idea if there’s another exit, and the two goons are close enough to overtake her anyway. Most importantly, she isn’t about to leave Villanelle behind, where she’s laying unconscious on the floor.

So she raises her hands in the air, drops her stake to the ground with a clatter, and puts up no fight while the goon called Danny comes over and puts her in a pair of silver handcuffs. Reg hefts Villanelle’s limp body onto his back, and they carry their prisoners outside to a van waiting in the night.

On the brief, bumpy van ride, Eve stares down Danny, who was chosen to babysit the hostages while Reg takes the wheel.

“You’re human?” she asks.

“Yep.”

“And you work for Peel? Are you…” For some reason, the word ‘thrall’ now feels dirty, so Eve stretches her neck to the side to indicate her scar.

“Nope,” Danny laughs. “Thank heavens. We’re on the payroll of our own free will. The pay is quite generous.”

“So has he got a whole squad of human mercenaries?” Eve asks. “Why not vampires?”

“He’s got those, too,” Danny says. “But humans are better suited for different tasks.”

Eve nods slowly. 

“You know I’m only telling you all this because as soon as we get to the Palazzo, he’s going to kill you.” Danny chuckles. “Killing his sister, right here in the city, right under his nose. You’ve got balls, I’ll give you that.”

Eve nods once more, in a daze, then looks down on the floor to where Villanelle is laid out, still out like a light. Those tranquilizer darts must be something special.

A few minutes later, the van screeches to a halt, and Danny pauses to blindfold and gag Eve before guiding her outside. “Sorry,” he mumbles. “Procedure.”

The blind march, guided by Danny’s hands on her shoulders, is full of twists and turns and staircases. Eve tries to keep track at first, should she need to retrace her steps and make an escape, but after the twentieth turn her memory becomes jumbled and she gives up.

Eventually, Eve is thrown down into a chair, and hears the sound of her cuffs clicking, as Danny chains her to the chair. Then, her blindfold comes off, though the gag remains.

“Comfy?” Danny asks.

Eve glares.

“Boss’ll come through to deal with you when he’s ready,” Danny says cheerfully. “Hope you enjoyed our premium ride service.”

Then he’s gone. 

Eve takes stock of her new location: a long, narrow room, lined with bookshelves and other decorations. A library? A parlor? Whatever it is, it’s fancy as shit. Renaissance-style moulding, beautiful chandeliers. A huge arched window on the wall opposite Eve. A second, smaller window next to it remains covered by curtains. Sculptures and other decorations dot the shelves and walls. One of the short walls is dominated by a gigantic portrait: two men and a woman. Though they’re dressed in early twentieth century garb, Eve recognizes Amber, and also, the “Aaron” surrogate she met the other day. Could that really be him? She supposes the older man must be their father, Alistair. Now deceased, struck down by the son’s hand. 

A few minutes later, Reg comes through, dragging Villanelle. He lays her out in a corner of the room, and loops another set of silver shackles around her, chaining her to a hook in the wall. Apparently, they expect her to wake soon. What a comfort that Aaron will wait for both Eve and Villanelle to be fully conscious for whatever terrible fate he has in store for them.

There’s no clock among the many trinkets in the room, so Eve has no sense of how much time passes, until she notes the sky lightening outside through the window. It appears to be just past dawn when a familiar figure enters the room. “Aaron”, or his surrogate, whoever it is – the man that Eve spoke to at the office. _Not this asshole again._

“Do you think I’m stupid, Eve Polastri?” he says, skipping the pleasantries. Then, after a few seconds. “Please respond. This is not a rhetorical question.”

Eve, still gagged, shakes her head to indicate “no”.

“You haven’t treated me as such,” Aaron says. “Not only did you offer a pathetically poor lie to my face the other day, you then had your vampire friend contact my sister almost immediately. Then proceeded to show up at her apartment yourself… and kill her. Did you not think I have security cameras in my sister’s residence?”

If Eve were not gagged, she’d send back some sniping question about what good security cameras would be for a vampire.

Aaron strides closer to Eve to stare her down. “I offered you an exceptional deal, and you not only declined it, you chose to further aggravate me. You killed my sister.”

He’s close now, and Eve’s veins begin to go cold with fear. Vampire or not, there’s something unsettling about his eyes. Something predatory.

“I’m afraid it’s not a matter of personal offense that can be mended with an apology,” Aaron says. “I am merely astounded by your stupidity. I forget how emotional humans can get. I suppose you have some motive that makes perfect sense in your melodramatic world view – ‘love’, ‘revenge’, ‘justice’… I don’t care about any of that. I do plan to make your death slow and painful. I do not enjoy being thought stupid.”

The sun continues to rise, and streams in through the large window on one side of the room. Eve waits for Aaron to close the curtains, or put up a shutter, but he does nothing. He’s not in the beams of light now, but as the sun continues to rise… Eve can’t help but roll her eyes; if this is the real Aaron after all, then it appears Villanelle isn’t the only vampire with a taste for daring when it comes to the sun’s beams.

Before Eve can dwell further on the vampire-or-proxy debate, there’s a faint rattling of chains as Villanelle stirs in the corner.

“Ah, the guest of honor,” Aaron says. 

Villanelle looks around, blinks. Clearly confused, but trying to hide it. Within a few seconds, though, she’s put up a convincing façade of confidence, and is staring Aaron down. “You have a lovely home,” she says, as smugly as one can when chained to the wall.

Aaron snaps his fingers, and Danny reappears from a door at the other end of the room. He walks over to where Villanelle is chained, showing no fear of the now-conscious vampire, and swiftly unlocks her shackles. She murmurs thanks, and then Danny leaves again just as soon as he appeared.

Villanelle stands, and takes stock of Aaron again in a new light. “You could’ve just asked me over.”

“Isn’t this more fun?” Aaron says, with a trace of amusement. 

“You found me,” Villanelle says. “With all your searching and your little human army, you finally got me.”

“You made it pathetically easy, showing up at my sister’s,” Aaron says. “I had hoped for a bit more of a chase, from the vampire who killed my best assassin.”

“Eve did that,” Villanelle says. Eve would groan if she weren’t gagged. Now she gets credit.

“But you were the driving force, weren’t you?” Aaron says. “In fact, you’ve slipped through a lot of fingers, the past few years,” Aaron says. “Once I began looking, I found traces. A journey, from Russia, then west across Europe, all the way to London – a trail of destruction, but no successful capture, attributed to a ‘Demon With No Face’.”

Villanelle smirks. “I didn’t pick the name.”

“What should I call you, then?”

“Villanelle.”

“Villanelle,” Aaron repeats.

The name hangs heavy in the air. An honest introduction between the two vampires. They stand face to face, about ten meters apart in the long room, with the morning sun shining through the window creating an impassable bright patch between them. 

“Join me,” Aaron says.

Villanelle takes in the words carefully. Weighing them inside her head. Offers no response.

“I want someone like you. No; more precisely, it is _only_ you whom I want.” Aaron’s words pick up speed ever so slightly. “This would not be a lowly position. No mere mercenary – I want you to be my right hand. You would be the second-most powerful creature in Europe.” He pauses. “And soon, the world.”

Villanelle remains silent and still, as if she’s turned into a statue.

“Of course, I do not expect you to say yes without knowing what is in it for you,” Aaron says. “There are boons I can offer you that no one else can.”

He steps forward, slow deliberate paces, until his body is fully engulfed in the patch of sunlight streaming through the window. Villanelle’s eyes widen in awe.

“Father’s greatest invention,” Aaron says, his pale skin practically glowing in the dawn light. “Special glass that filters out the UV rays, every bit that’s harmful to us. Try it.”

Eve fears a trap. Is this man still Aaron’s thrall, baiting Villanelle into the sunlight where she will burn? She lets out a muffled cry from behind her gag, but Villanelle is so transfixed, she doesn’t spare a glance in Eve’s direction. She walks forward, closing the distance between her and Aaron until she, too, is fully embraced by the sun’s rays.

And she does not burn. 

Instead of feeling relief, Eve only feels a knot grow in her stomach. Two things are painfully clear now: this man is indeed Aaron Peel, the most powerful vampire in Europe, and that Villanelle is seriously considering his offer.

Villanelle’s eyes are closed now, as she stands basking in the sunlight, for the first time in years.

“You forget how it feels, after a time,” Aaron says softly. “You convince yourself it isn’t worth missing.”

Villanelle finally opens her eyes. Still, she says nothing. She wants to be further enticed.

“That’s not all,” Aaron says, and strides over to the closed set of curtains on the wall. He pulls them back to reveal, not a window, but what appears to be a large mirror, with some wires and panels laid around it. He presses a switch on the panel, steps in front, and his image appears in the mirror.

“This is _my_ greatest invention,” he says to his reflection. “Took quite a bit of thinking, this one. About a decade of tinkering to find the right strategy.” He steps aside, and motions for Villanelle to take his place. “The smart cameras detect all the light that isn’t present where we are, and puts the puzzle of negative space back together on the screen…”

But Villanelle isn’t listening to his explanation of the science. She slowly approaches, and stands in front of the mirror. For the first time in four years, she sees herself. Her expression is like that of a puppy or a child realizing for the first time that the reflection in the glass is, in fact, them. She raises a hand. Her reflection does the same. She touches her face, pressing and pulling at the skin.

“Wow,” she murmurs. “Beautiful.”

Aaron steps up beside her, so their reflections align, almost like Aaron and Amber’s position side-by-side in the family portrait. “Mirrors, cameras, we can do it all. Join me, and all this is yours, forever. In addition to all the other creature comforts you could ever want.”

Villanelle stays fixed on her image, lost in thought. After what feels like ages, she asks, “What about her?”

“I’m afraid Eve must die, that’s non-negotiable,” Aaron says curtly. “She killed Amber. But…” he pauses. “If you were to join me, I may be persuaded to make her death somewhat quick, and relatively less painful.”

Villanelle says nothing.

“You can have as many new human pets you want.” Aaron says. “Though, after a few years, I doubt you’ll care for them anymore.”

“Those are the terms?” Villanelle asks. She begins wandering around, exploring the room, examining the items on the bookshelves. “I live with you, kill an enemy once in a while, and get everything I want. You kill Eve.”

“Yes.”

Eve’s heart pounds furiously. Eve knows Villanelle can hear it; she pauses where she stands in front of one shelf full of decor. Any other moment, any other day, Eve would’ve been sure that Villanelle would laugh at the offer and kill Aaron in an instant.

But after seeing Villanelle’s face alight in the sun? After seeing her delight in her own reflection? Eve can only _hope_ Villanelle takes the deal, so that at least her death might be painless.

“I have made up my mind,” Villanelle says, pronouncing each word carefully, deliberately.

Then, her hand closes around a tiny marble bust of some historical figure from the bookshelf. In the blink of and eye, she’s hurled it in Aaron’s direction, like a cannonball. It sails harmlessly past him. Straight into the window.

With a tremendous crash, a gaping hole appears in the center of the window, letting the unfiltered sunlight shine onto Aaron. He screams, and his skin immediately turns a nasty shade of red and small patches catch fire. He stumbles out of the light and throws himself to the ground, rolling to suffocate the flames.

Meanwhile, Villanelle dashes over to Eve and tears off her gag. Eve gasps, as soon as her mouth is free, “I love you. You know that, right?”

“Obviously,” Villanelle snaps, as she examines the cuffs binding Eve to the chair. A short expletive in Russian as she notices they’re made of silver. 

“Vill!” Eve screams, as she notices Aaron on the other side of the room picking himself up – smoldering, but very much alive.

Villanelle whirls around, ready to fight. 

A loud thud as the two vampires spring at each other and collide with force. Any hopes that Eve had that Aaron was merely a figurehead incapable of holding his own since he always had others to fight his battles for him vanish, as he trades blows diligently with Villanelle.

While they wrestle, Eve furiously scans the room for anything that might help. A few metal sculptures… Shelves full of books… The vampire mirror… The portrait on the wall… No secret weapons present themselves. She pulls uselessly at her cuffs, but there’s not much she can do but watch the two vampires fight, and pray that reinforcements do not appear.

Eve’s eyes struggle to keep up. Villanelle has Aaron in a headlock – then he’s flipped her over onto the ground – now they’re both back up, grappling. Aaron forces Villanelle backwards, towards the patch of sun. She groans in pain as her shoulder enters the danger zone and begins to smoke, but then, manages to whirl Aaron around in a sort of judo flip that gets his face into the blast of light.

Villanelle pulls herself free and escapes back into the shadows, trying to make her way for Eve again. Aaron roars and clutches his face, now half-burnt like the Phantom of the Opera. He staggers to safety, but grabs onto the side of the window for support. Wait, is it for support? He clutches one of the jagged edges of the broken glass and snaps off a wickedly long shard in his hand.

Villanelle is at Eve’s side once more. Now, she abandons all pride and elegance, and goes to pick up the entire chair, Eve and all, to possibly make a run for it that way. But Aaron has noticed her plan, and takes aim, throwing the shard of glass like a dart. It whizzes past the crouching Villanelle, missing her face by mere inches.

Despite this, Aaron looks pleased with himself, so if he wasn’t aiming for Villanelle… Eve blinks, and wonders where the glass went, as it seemed to vanish after it passed Villanelle. Then, she feels a dampness, and looks down, to find half of the large shard poking out of her stomach, just above her belly button. _Right through the soul…_ she thinks. _That can’t be good._

Eve dazedly watches the redness take over more and more of her sweater. She can’t seem to pull her eyes away from the red spot that gently grows, like an amoeba. As she stares, she hears snarling and crashing from across the room. Eventually, she manages to raise her head, to see Villanelle absolutely tearing into Aaron.

She has cornered him, back in the corner where she was first tethered, and managed to tangle him up in the shackles that bound her only minutes ago. He cries out, but she shows no mercy. A sickening series of snaps, one after another, impossibly fast, as she snaps bones all over his body. He’s bent into a comically odd shape, like modern art. Villanelle finally stands, panting heavily, surveying the pitifully defeated creature before her.

“I am the most powerful vampire,” she spits at him. He is unwilling, or unable, to form a response.

Villanelle turns wildly, scanning her surroundings. “Is there no wood in this stupid room?” she mutters.

Eve looks, too. It makes sense, that someone as paranoid as Aaron wouldn’t keep wooden implements around, and keep visitors from bringing in stakes, to make sure he is protected inside his own home. Indeed, all the furniture that Eve can see, including the chair she is bound to, seems to be made of metal, plastic, or stone. All useless.

Eve throws her head back limply. Then, a solution appears.

“Frame,” Eve gurgles, the slight movement of her diaphragm causing a wave of pain from her wound. It wasn’t very loud, or clear, but Villanelle understands her. Like a monkey, she climbs up one of the bookshelves to grab the family portrait of the Peels off the wall.

Back on the ground, she snaps the frame apart, and sure enough, it’s made of wood. She takes the splintered end, walks back into the corner, and grabs Aaron’s body. She carries him over to the mirror and props up his limp head.

“You should enjoy your own invention one last time.” Villanelle makes him stare at his reflection as she positions the stake over his heart. Aaron’s eyes light up, and despite his pained expression, he seems to grin. 

Then Villanelle swings the stake. The “most powerful vampire in Europe” is now a pile of dust in the corner of his own library.

Villanelle rushes back over to Eve. She fusses uselessly with the cuffs for a few seconds, then yells out in frustration and begins running around the room again, in search of any implement that might help.

“Just take the chair,” Eve mumbles. “Maybe they can cut the cuffs at the hospital…”

“We won’t make it there,” Villanelle says. “Not in the daylight.” Then, seizes an oddly shaped metal sculpture from one of the shelves; vaguely like an eagle’s wing, which appears to be made of lead. Returns and bashes the cuffs with it until the chain gives way. 

Then Villanelle grabs Eve’s body and carefully lays her on the floor. With a wince, she closes her hands around the sharp edges of glass shard protruding from Eve’s stomach.

Eve realizes too late what Villanelle is about to do, and whimpers, “Don’t pull it–”

Villanelle yanks it free.

“What did I just…!” Eve whimpers, but cannot even finish her admonition, for the blood has begun to pour freely from her stomach and she’s suddenly very faint.

“Shhhh,” Villanelle coos. “It’s okay.”

Villanelle lifts Eve’s sweater, and puts her mouth to the wound. She drinks, and Eve was already starting to feel faint from blood loss, but a new wave of dizziness comes over her, feeling like she stood up too quickly, even though she’s laid flat on the ground. Her vision starts to swim and everything takes on a bright green tinge.

Suddenly the world jolts back into focus as Villanelle’s hand slaps against her face like a thunderclap. “Eve!” Villanelle says. “Do not close your eyes. I know you feel sleepy. I remember. But do not let go. You are not done yet.”

Eve says nothing; it’s taking all of her strength of will to keep her eyes open, and words would be too much.

Villanelle picks up the shard of glass again, and in her delirium, some part of Eve’s brain expects her to insert it back into Eve’s stomach – _that’s where it belongs, right?_ But instead, she grimaces, and presses the jagged edge into her forearm, cutting open a long slice, leaving a thin red trail behind it.

“Eve!” Villanelle snaps again, and as Eve’s eyes refocus, now Villanelle’s arm is right in front of her face. The blood dripping down mere inches away.

 _This is grotesque,_ Eve thinks. _Why does she want this to be the last thing I see? Some morbid cry for attention, even in my final moments?_

“Don’t you remember?” Villanelle pleads. “You have to drink.”

Finally. The spark of recognition catches. Eve’s synapses fire, and she understands what she must do. 

But should she?

This is her choice. To drink or not to drink. Live on as a vampire, or die as a human. To sacrifice the sunlight and her sense of self, to commit to murder every few days in order to stay her hunger; or, to nobly accept the hand life has dealt her, and end up buried beside Niko.

More than that: to choose humanity is to let go. To drink is to seize onto eternity. Eternity alongside Villanelle.

Eve realizes she really never had a choice at all.

She can’t even lift her head, but Villanelle presses her forearm to Eve’s lips, and Eve manages, just barely, to begin sucking in Villanelle’s blood.

It’s a horrid taste. Rusty, salty, and thin. As soon as Eve gets it in her mouth, she puckers and stops.

“Swallow,” Villanelle commands, and uses her other hand to gently massage Eve’s throat. “You need more. Much more than that.”

So Eve tries again, but it’s awful. The blood seems to grow more viscous the more of it she takes in. Her throat rebels against her; she begins to gag. 

She coughs, and feels blood dribble down her chin. She can’t do it. Her vision is growing black around the edges, and Villanelle’s voice sounds very far away. “Eve! Keep drinking!” come the tinny words. “I can’t do it for you. It has to be you. Please, Eve!”

Somehow, Eve manages to press her lips again and lap more blood from Villanelle’s arm. Drink, and swallow. One mouthful. Then another. Then another. She can’t see, can’t hear anymore. Is she still drinking? Or is she dying, is she already dead?

Then her hearing comes back, but is limited to only one sound: her own heartbeat. Eve can hear it pounding like a timpani. Louder and louder, slower and slower. It sounds like a giant’s footstep. It sounds like a whip crack. A longer and longer pause between each until–

Eve’s heart beats its last beat.

Silence.

And Eve opens her eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That was Stakes.
> 
> Stay tuned for the final arc of the Thirst trilogy: ETERNITY. Coming soon.
> 
> \----
> 
> What did you think of this installment of the series? Let me know in the comments, or come give a shout on [tumblr](https://imunbreakabledude.tumblr.com/) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/not_breakable)!


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